clair-obscur
\klɛ.ʁɔp.skyʁ\
The verdict
“clair-obscur” 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) - Imitation de l’effet que produit la lumière en éclairant les surfaces qu’elle frappe et en laissant dans l’ombre celles qu’elle ne frappe pas.
Corpus desk
Index FR-clair-obscur · clair-obscur · French
clair-obscur · 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 | clair-obscur |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \klɛ.ʁɔp.skyʁ\ |
| Letters | 12 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « clair-obscur » en français
Rare enough to double-check
clair-obscur is uncommon French outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun, transcribed \klɛ.ʁɔp.skyʁ\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 3 senses are on record.
We couldn't generate a plausible misspelling set for clair-obscur, suggesting the orthography follows predictable French patterns. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.
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 clair-obscur, spelled C-L-A-I-R---O-B-S-C-U-R.
Definition
- 1Imitation de l’effet que produit la lumière en éclairant les surfaces qu’elle frappe et en laissant dans l’ombre celles qu’elle ne frappe pas.
- 2Les effets mêmes de la lumière sur les corps qu’elle frappe.
- 3Parties d’un dessin, d’une peinture où l’on voit à travers l’ombre les formes et les couleurs.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how clair-obscur appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
L’art, la science du clair-obscur. Les clairs-obscurs sont bien traités dans ce tableau.
Le cercle de lumière projeté par la lanterne l’éclairait faiblement, et il ressemblait, dans cette zone de clair-obscur, à ces sombres statues de chevaliers, toujours debout à l’encoignure de quelque tombe noire sous les chapelles gothiques.
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.