cherche-pain
\ʃɛʁʃ.pɛ̃\
The verdict
“cherche-pain” is uncommon French (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency French
- 12
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Vagabond, mendiant.
Corpus desk
Index FR-cherche-pain · cherche-pain · French
cherche-pain · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 12 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 | cherche-pain |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \ʃɛʁʃ.pɛ̃\ |
| Letters | 12 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « cherche-pain » en français
Rare enough to double-check
cherche-pain is uncommon French outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun, transcribed \ʃɛʁʃ.pɛ̃\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Vagabond, mendiant.".
cherche-pain has no tracked misspelling variants, suggesting the orthography follows predictable French patterns. We don't track a confusable pairing for this entry, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
This headword's origin isn't recorded in our source data, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. The correct French form is cherche-pain, spelled C-H-E-R-C-H-E---P-A-I-N.
Definition
- 1Vagabond, mendiant.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how cherche-pain appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
À cet excès de nature, les miséreux à leur habitude payèrent le prix fort : les cherche-pain saisis par la mort blanche au creux d’un fossé ou dans un baraquement de fortune, les vieillards isolés et les enfants chétifs, les chiens errants et les mésanges.
Quand, dans un hiver de granges vides, passent les cherche-pain, si la Mathilde donne quelques châtaignes, une poignée de noix, elle espère vaguement que son geste sera vu du ciel.
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.