clef de voûte
\kle də vut\
The verdict
“clef de voûte” 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
- 13
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Claveau situé au milieu d'une voûte et servant à maintenir les autres pierres.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | clef de voûte |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \kle də vut\ |
| Letters | 13 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “clef de voûte” sits in French frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The French entry for clef de voûte is 13 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \kle də vut\. It sits outside the most-frequent rank tiers, which is often why uncommon words generate more spelling variants per reader. Wiktionary records 3 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for clef de voûte, typically a sign the spelling maps closely to how the word sounds. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, since its spelling is unusual enough that it doesn't cluster with a lookalike.
This headword's origin isn't recorded in our source data, so its spelling is easiest to reason about phoneme by phoneme, absent a documented history. The correct French form is clef de voûte, spelled C-L-E-F- -D-E- -V-O-Û-T-E.
Definition
- 1Claveau situé au milieu d'une voûte et servant à maintenir les autres pierres.
- 2Point central, partie principale d’une affaire, dont tous les autres aspects dépendent.
- 3Personne sur laquelle repose une affaire, sa réussite ou son échec.
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.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “clef de voûte”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct French spelling is C-L-E-F- -D-E- -V-O-Û-T-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as \kle də vut\ (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
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.