cligner de l’œil
\kli.ɲe də l‿œj\
The verdict
“cligner de l’œil” is outside the top-ranked French vocabulary, used as a verb - the kind of word writers most often double-check.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency French
- 16
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Fermer puis ouvrir la paupière en signe de complicité.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | cligner de l’œil |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | \kli.ɲe də l‿œj\ |
| Letters | 16 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “cligner de l’œil” sits in French frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The French entry for cligner de l’œil is 16 letters long, classified as a verb, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \kli.ɲe də l‿œj\. 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: "Fermer puis ouvrir la paupière en signe de complicité.".
The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for cligner de l’œil, a sign its spelling follows regular French conventions. 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 spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. The correct French form is cligner de l’œil, spelled C-L-I-G-N-E-R- -D-E- -L-’-Œ-I-L.
Definition
- 1Fermer puis ouvrir la paupière en signe de complicité.
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.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “cligner de l’œil”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct French spelling is C-L-I-G-N-E-R- -D-E- -L-’-Œ-I-L - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as \kli.ɲe də l‿œj\ (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.