chef-lieu
\ʃɛf ljø\
The verdict
“chef-lieu” is uncommon French (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency French
- 9
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Capitale d’un lieu.
Corpus desk
Index FR-chef-lieu · chef-lieu · French
chef-lieu · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-LONG 9 letters
- VOW-4 4 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "C" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
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.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | chef-lieu |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \ʃɛf ljø\ |
| Letters | 9 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « chef-lieu » en français
Rare enough to double-check
chef-lieu is uncommon French outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun, transcribed \ʃɛf ljø\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for chef-lieu, suggesting the orthography follows predictable French patterns. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.
No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, leaving phoneme-to-grapheme mapping as the best guide to its spelling rather than a borrowing history. The correct French form is chef-lieu, spelled C-H-E-F---L-I-E-U.
Definition
- 1Capitale d’un lieu.
- 2Centre administratif de chacune des dix provinces belges.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how chef-lieu appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Chaque fjord islandais a un petit chef-lieu où le steamer fait escale cinq ou six fois dans le cours d'une année. Dans ces localités résident des marchands […].
La commune peut ne comprendre qu'un chef-lieu, ainsi dans l'ouest aux abords de la Beauce, Desmonts et Courcelles, ou, un chef-lieu et une multitude d'écarts (maisons isolées, groupements élémentaires et localités autres que le chef-lieu…), dans le pays bocager aux allures de Puisaye.
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). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.