clou de girofle
\klu də ʒi.ʁɔfl\
The verdict
“clou de girofle” is uncommon French (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency French
- 15
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Bouton des fleurs du giroflier desséché utilisé comme épice.
Corpus desk
Index FR-clou-de-girofle · clou de girofle · French
clou de girofle · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 15 letters
- VOW-6 6 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 | clou de girofle |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \klu də ʒi.ʁɔfl\ |
| Letters | 15 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « clou de girofle » en français
Rare enough to double-check
clou de girofle is uncommon French outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun, transcribed \klu də ʒi.ʁɔfl\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Bouton des fleurs du giroflier desséché utilisé comme épice.".
The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for clou de girofle, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. This entry stands alone in our confusable dataset, suggesting its spelling stands apart enough that readers rarely confuse it with something else.
This entry carries no recorded etymology, 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 clou de girofle, spelled C-L-O-U- -D-E- -G-I-R-O-F-L-E.
Definition
- 1Bouton des fleurs du giroflier desséché utilisé comme épice.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how clou de girofle appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
La messe finie, on rentrait vite à la maison sous les étoiles, on s’embarrait soigneusement, on soufflait sur la braise pour rallumer le feu et, à la lueur du calel, on mangeait les « bougnettes » arrosées de vin chaud, parfumé à la cannelle, au laurier et aux clous de girofle.
Elle retrouvait l’odeur forte des oranges piquées de clous de girofle, à la mode créole.
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.