chétive
\ʃe.tiv\
The verdict
“chétive” is uncommon French (frequency #85,573 among 8,609 “C” headwords), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #85,573
- frequency rank, French
- 8,609
- “C” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Féminin singulier de chétif.
Corpus desk
Index FR-chetive · chétive · French
chétive · rank #85,573 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #85,573
- LEN-LONG 7 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 8,609
- PHOTO-FINISH châtellenies
Nearest frequency peer: châtellenies (-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 « chétive »
Bande clairsemée: les barres inversent le rang pour que le rare se lise plus court
- chipmunks
chipmunks
14,432 corpus weight
- CHRU
CHRU
14,430 corpus weight
- châtellenies
châtellenies
14,429 corpus weight
- chétive
chétive
14,428 corpus weight
- circulera
circulera
14,427 corpus weight
- clavardage
clavardage
14,425 corpus weight
What this shows Vue de longue queue: où « chétive » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | chétive |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | \ʃe.tiv\ |
| Letters | 7 |
| Frequency rank | #85,573 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « chétive » en français
Rare enough to double-check
chétive is uncommon French at frequency #85,573 among 8,609 “C” headwords, classed as anadjective, transcribed \ʃe.tiv\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Féminin singulier de chétif.".
chétive doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, a straightforward case of a spelling with little room for common typos. 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.
No documented word history exists for this headword, so its spelling is best explained by sound-to-letter mapping rather than etymology. The correct French form is chétive, spelled C-H-É-T-I-V-E.
Definition
- 1Féminin singulier de chétif.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how chétive appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
On ne tient pas contre de telles réponses, surtout quand elles sont accompagnées d’un séjour de trois heures dans une chétive auberge de la Basse-Indre, où nous avons déjeuné de poisson frais dans une petite chambre comme en peignent les peintres de genre, et par les fenêtres de laquelle on entendait mugir les forges d’Indret à travers la belle nappe de l…
Si on désire s’éviter une bataille, à moins de surprendre une place chétive et dépourvue, et de n’avoir en perspective que l’acquisition d’un point stratégique, je crois qu’on doit s’abstenir de mettre en mouvement cet immense appareil de matériel appelé parc de siège, qui alourdit la marche d'une armée, et qui peut la compromettre par inertie dans le con…
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 "chétive", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked French headwords with 7 letters (nearest by frequency rank).