ciao
\tʃa.o\
The verdict
“ciao” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #17,900) as an interjection. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.
- #17,900
- frequency rank, French
- 8,609
- “C” headwords
- 4
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Au revoir.
Corpus desk
Index FR-ciao · ciao · French
ciao · rank #17,900 · 4 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-MID #17,900
- LEN-MID 4 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-LOW 4 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 8,609
- PHOTO-FINISH chaotique
Nearest frequency peer: chaotique (-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.
Voisins de fréquence du confusable « ciao »
Pairs de poids proche dans le corpus, séparés des confusables ci-dessous
- causées
causées
82,104 corpus weight
- challenger
challenger
82,103 corpus weight
- chaotique
chaotique
82,102 corpus weight
- ciao
ciao
82,101 corpus weight
- cliquant
cliquant
82,099 corpus weight
- Cody
Cody
82,098 corpus weight
What this shows Les barres placent « ciao » face aux lemmes français les plus proches par rang, pas un reprint du bureau des confusables.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | ciao |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Interjection |
| IPA | \tʃa.o\ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #17,900 |
| Misspellings tracked | 4 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Rang de corpus près des confusables de « ciao »
Easy to mix with look-alikes
The spelling risk for ciao is neighbouring look-alikes ("co", "CSA", …), not just typos; it is aninterjection pronounced \tʃa.o\. Frequency #17,900 among 8,609 “C” headwords. Gloss: "Au revoir.".
Our generated misspelling index lists 4 likely wrong-spelling variants for ciao, with forms such as "caio", "cciao", and "cioa". Each variant is a distinct typo pattern an edit-distance generator flags, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "co", "CSA", "CIV", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
Wiktionary doesn't record an etymology for this headword, so its spelling is best read as a straightforward mapping from sound to letter. The correct French form is ciao, spelled C-I-A-O.
Definition
- 1Au revoir.
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how ciao appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Il nous a dit « Ciao, à demain ! » Ciao, un mot nouveau, ça nous a fait de l’impression.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as:
- caio
- cciao
- cioa
- icao
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of ciao - expressed in single-character edits (insert, delete, or swap one letter). Bigger bars stand out at a glance; a one-edit slip is the hardest to catch.
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 "ciao"?
What does "ciao" mean?
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Similar French words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "ciao", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked French headwords with 4 letters (nearest by frequency rank).