clé de fa

/\kle də fa\/ noun

The verdict

“clé de fa” is outside the top-ranked French vocabulary, used as a noun — the kind of word writers most often double-check.

Unranked
below top-frequency French
9
letters

Dominant Wiktionary sense: Clé qui concerne les sons graves et se plaçant en début de la troisième portée.

Key facts for clé de fa
PropertyValue
Headwordclé de fa
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\kle də fa\
Letters9
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Where “clé de fa” sits in French frequency

clé de fa falls outside the top-100,000 ranked French words — the long-tail zone of technical, archaic, or low-frequency vocabulary, exactly where readers second-guess spellings most.

Beyond rank #100,000. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

The French entry for clé de fa is 9 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \kle də fa\. It sits outside the most-frequent rank tiers, which is often why uncommon words generate more spelling variants per reader. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "Clé qui concerne les sons graves et se plaçant en début de la troisième portée.".

No misspelling variants are generated for clé de fa in our index, suggesting the orthography follows predictable French patterns. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.

No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct French form is clé de fa, spelled C-L-É- -D-E- -F-A, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.

Definition

  1. 1
    Clé qui concerne les sons graves et se plaçant en début de la troisième portée.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "clé de fa"?
"clé de fa" is spelled C-L-É- -D-E- -F-A. The IPA pronunciation is \kle də fa\.
What does "clé de fa" mean?
As a noun, "clé de fa" means: Clé qui concerne les sons graves et se plaçant en début de la troisième portée.
How do you pronounce "clé de fa"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "clé de fa" is \kle də fa\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "clé de fa" come from?
"clé de fa" is a French word. PlainSpell covers definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German.
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.

Using “clé de fa”

The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.

  • The one correct French spelling is C-L-É- -D-E- -F-A — every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
  • Say it as \kle də fa\ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
  • Browse more French words and confusable pairs in the same reference. French words

Nearby French words

Other entries that begin with the letter C in our French index:

Explore PlainSpell

Data Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.