châtier

\ʃɑ.tje\

/\ʃɑ.tje\/ verb

The verdict

“châtier” is uncommon French (frequency #50,720 among 8,609 “C” headwords), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

#50,720
frequency rank, French
8,609
“C” headwords

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Infliger une peine destinée à corriger.

Corpus desk

Index FR-chatier · châtier · French

châtier · rank #50,720 · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-RARE #50,720
  • LEN-LONG 7 letters
  • VOW-3 3 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-DENSE 8,609
  • PHOTO-FINISH choriste

Nearest frequency peer: choriste (-1 rank slots)

Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.

Rangs de longue queue près de « châtier »

Bande clairsemée: les barres inversent le rang pour que le rare se lise plus court

corpus weight

What this shows Vue de longue queue: où « châtier » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026
Key facts for châtier
PropertyValue
Headwordchâtier
LanguageFrench
Part of speechVerb
IPA\ʃɑ.tje\
Letters7
Frequency rank#50,720
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Longue queue: rang de « châtier » en français

Cette échelle va du noyau du français courant (gauche) jusqu'à la traîne des formes rares (droite).châtiertombe dans cette queue de rareté:

#1#100#1K#10K#100K
← used constantlyrarely used →

L'échelle est logarithmique (chaque tic ≈ 10× plus rare). Voisins rares de la même bande: « choriste » (#50,719), « Cilicie » (#50,721), « Chir » (#50,718). Parmi 8,609 lemmes en « C », « châtier » est au #50,720. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

châtier is uncommon French at frequency #50,720 among 8,609 “C” headwords, classed as averb, transcribed \ʃɑ.tje\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 4 senses are on record.

We couldn't generate a plausible misspelling set for châtier, a straightforward case of a spelling with little room for common typos. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.

No documented word history exists for this headword, so its spelling is easiest to reason about phoneme by phoneme, absent a documented history. The correct French form is châtier, spelled C-H-Â-T-I-E-R.

Definition

  1. 1
    Infliger une peine destinée à corriger.
  2. 2
    Donner, au cheval, des coups de cravache ou d’éperon, lorsqu’il refuse de faire ce qu’on exige de lui.
  3. 3
    Corriger la faute elle-même qu’on veut reprendre.
  4. 4
    Polir, rendre plus pur, plus correct, en parlant des ouvrages de l’esprit.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

These source excerpts show how châtier appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. Il ordonna, de sa petite voix, que sa mère serait régente pour avoir soin de son éducation ; en d'autres termes, il commanda qu'elle lui commandât, l’éduquât, le châtiât.
  2. Mais généralement l'envoi de quelques troupes met fin aux troubles en peu de temps. Elles envahissent le territoire de la tribu à châtier, pillent les douars, razzient les troupeaux, détruisent les cultures, font des prisonniers et coupent des têtes, […].

Synonyms

This word in other languages

Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 French corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "châtier"?
"châtier" is spelled C-H-Â-T-I-E-R. The IPA pronunciation is \ʃɑ.tje\.
What does "châtier" mean?
As a verb, "châtier" means: Infliger une peine destinée à corriger.
How do you pronounce "châtier"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "châtier" is \ʃɑ.tje\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "châtier" come from?
"châtier" is a French word. PlainSpell's reference spans five languages -- English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German -- with definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for each.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Similar French words by spelling shape

Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "châtier", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked French headwords with 7 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list