chien-de-mer
\ʃjɛ̃ də mɛʁ\
The verdict
“chien-de-mer” 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) - Petit squale, largement répandu sur les côtes.
Corpus desk
Index FR-chien-de-mer · chien-de-mer · French
chien-de-mer · 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 | chien-de-mer |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \ʃjɛ̃ də mɛʁ\ |
| Letters | 12 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « chien-de-mer » en français
Rare enough to double-check
chien-de-mer is uncommon French outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun, transcribed \ʃjɛ̃ də mɛʁ\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
Zero misspellings are on record for chien-de-mer in our index, 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 borrowing history is documented for this entry, so any spelling logic here comes from how the word's sounds map to letters, not a documented origin story. The correct French form is chien-de-mer, spelled C-H-I-E-N---D-E---M-E-R.
Definition
- 1Petit squale, largement répandu sur les côtes.
- 2Synonyme d'émissole (poisson, requin).
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how chien-de-mer appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
les chiens de mer, horribles, avec leurs têtes rondes, leurs bouches largement fendues d’idoles chinoises, leurs courtes ailes de chauves-souris charnues, monstres qui doivent garder de leurs abois les trésors des grottes marines..
Rappelle-toi ce chien de mer Que nous libérions sur parole Et qui gueule dans le désert Des goémons de nécropole.
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.