clue
\kly\
The verdict
“clue” is uncommon French (frequency #81,004 among 8,609 “C” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #81,004
- frequency rank, French
- 8,609
- “C” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Synonyme de cluse, dans le Midi.
Corpus desk
Index FR-clue · clue · French
clue · rank #81,004 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #81,004
- LEN-MID 4 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 8,609
- PHOTO-FINISH clouet
Nearest frequency peer: clouet (-1 rank slots)
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.
Rangs de longue queue près de « clue »
Bande clairsemée: les barres inversent le rang pour que le rare se lise plus court
- Claverie
Claverie
19,002 corpus weight
- climatisée
climatisée
19,000 corpus weight
- climb
climb
18,999 corpus weight
- clouet
clouet
18,998 corpus weight
- clue
clue
18,997 corpus weight
- collapse
collapse
18,993 corpus weight
What this shows Vue de longue queue: où « clue » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | clue |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \kly\ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #81,004 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « clue » en français
Rare enough to double-check
clue is uncommon French at frequency #81,004 among 8,609 “C” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed \kly\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Synonyme de cluse, dans le Midi.".
clue has no tracked misspelling variants, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, since no other headword is close enough in sound or shape to pair with it.
This entry's etymology isn't recorded, leaving phoneme-to-grapheme mapping as the best guide to its spelling rather than a borrowing history. The correct French form is clue, spelled C-L-U-E.
Definition
- 1Synonyme de cluse, dans le Midi.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how clue appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
L’autobus Digne-Seyne passe devant le dernier olivier de la Provence qui monte la garde tout seul devant les clues de Barles.
Certains vallons forment des clues : de petits canyons perpendiculaires au Var, comme celui de la clue d’Amen, sont classés parmi les « rivières sauvages » – un label national reconnaissant la qualité exceptionnelle des cours d’eau.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 French corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Similar French words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "clue", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked French headwords with 4 letters (nearest by frequency rank).