chibi

\ʃi.bi\

/\ʃi.bi\/ noun

The verdict

“chibi” is uncommon French (frequency #88,455 among 8,609 “C” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

#88,455
frequency rank, French
8,609
“C” headwords

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Personnage enfantin avec des caractéristiques physiques exagérées.

Corpus desk

Index FR-chibi · chibi · French

chibi · rank #88,455 · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-RARE #88,455
  • LEN-MID 5 letters
  • VOW-2 2 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-DENSE 8,609
  • PHOTO-FINISH chercheure

Nearest frequency peer: chercheure (-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 « chibi »

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 « chibi » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026
Key facts for chibi
PropertyValue
Headwordchibi
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\ʃi.bi\
Letters5
Frequency rank#88,455
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Longue queue: rang de « chibi » en français

Cette échelle va du noyau du français courant (gauche) jusqu'à la traîne des formes rares (droite).chibitombe 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: « chercheure » (#88,454), « cheminent » (#88,453), « chloroquine » (#88,457). Parmi 8,609 lemmes en « C », « chibi » est au #88,455. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

chibi is uncommon French at frequency #88,455 among 8,609 “C” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed \ʃi.bi\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.

No misspelling variants are generated for chibi in our index, a sign its spelling follows regular French conventions. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, since its spelling is unusual enough that it doesn't cluster with a lookalike.

Wiktionary doesn't record an etymology for this headword, so its spelling is easiest to reason about phoneme by phoneme, absent a documented history. The correct French form is chibi, spelled C-H-I-B-I.

Definition

  1. 1
    Personnage enfantin avec des caractéristiques physiques exagérées.
  2. 2
    Style de dessin dans lequel les personnages sont dessinés de petite taille et mignons, adorables.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

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

  1. Comment dessiner un chibi Transformer un personnage en chibi Rapport tête/corps de divers chibi Façon de bouger des chibi
  2. L’avantage des chibis, en dehors du fait qu’ils sont super mignons et rigolos, est qu’ils sont faciles à dessiner, car leurs traits sont simplifiés !

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 "chibi"?
"chibi" is spelled C-H-I-B-I. The IPA pronunciation is \ʃi.bi\.
What does "chibi" mean?
As a noun, "chibi" means: Personnage enfantin avec des caractéristiques physiques exagérées.
How do you pronounce "chibi"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "chibi" is \ʃi.bi\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "chibi" come from?
"chibi" is a French word. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for this and other words across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German on PlainSpell.
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 "chibi", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked French headwords with 5 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list