chenu
\ʃə.ny\
The verdict
“chenu” is uncommon French (frequency #59,158 among 8,609 “C” headwords), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #59,158
- frequency rank, French
- 8,609
- “C” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Qui a les cheveux blanchis par la vieillesse.
Corpus desk
Index FR-chenu · chenu · French
chenu · rank #59,158 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #59,158
- LEN-MID 5 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 8,609
- PHOTO-FINISH cherté
Nearest frequency peer: cherté (+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 « chenu »
Bande clairsemée: les barres inversent le rang pour que le rare se lise plus court
- CED
CED
40,847 corpus weight
- Chaix
Chaix
40,846 corpus weight
- chauffes
chauffes
40,845 corpus weight
- chenu
chenu
40,843 corpus weight
- cherté
cherté
40,842 corpus weight
- chiisme
chiisme
40,841 corpus weight
What this shows Vue de longue queue: où « chenu » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | chenu |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | \ʃə.ny\ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #59,158 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « chenu » en français
Rare enough to double-check
chenu is uncommon French at frequency #59,158 among 8,609 “C” headwords, classed as anadjective, transcribed \ʃə.ny\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 6 senses are on record.
Zero misspellings are on record for chenu in our index, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
Our source data has no etymology on file for this entry, so its spelling is best read as a straightforward mapping from sound to letter. The correct French form is chenu, spelled C-H-E-N-U.
Definition
- 1Qui a les cheveux blanchis par la vieillesse.
- 2S’applique à la barbe, aux sourcils, aux parties du corps et même aux objets en les personnifiant.
- 3Qui a la cime blanchie (par la neige ou l’écume par exemple).
- 4Marqué par les ans (même sans notion de blancheur).
- 5Solidifié, bonifié par l’âge
- 6De haut niveau, de grande qualité.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how chenu appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
M. de Paris, avec lequel je fis connaissance cette même nuit, est aussi chenu et de la même taille que moi.
[…] et ma tête chenue m’apprend qu’il faut quitter les hommes et le jour.
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
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Similar French words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "chenu", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked French headwords with 5 letters (nearest by frequency rank).