colonialisme

\kɔ.lɔ.nja.lism\

/\kɔ.lɔ.nja.lism\/ noun

By · According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA) ·

The verdict

“colonialisme” has 17 generated spelling variants in the French index at frequency #20,671. The variants make it a useful spelling check.

#20,671
frequency rank, French
8,609
“C” headwords
17
tracked misspellings
1
confusable pair

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Doctrine, et ensemble de discours visant à légitimer la colonisation, fondés sur la conviction d’une supériorité culturelle, raciale ou civilisationnelle du colonisateur, et sur la nécessité de dom...

Corpus desk

Index FR-colonialisme · colonialisme · French

colonialisme · rank #20,671 · 17 variants · 1 confusable

  • FREQ-MID #20,671
  • LEN-MEGA 12 letters
  • VOW-6 6 vowels
  • CONFUS-LOW 1 pairs
  • VAR-HIGH 17 variants
  • BOOK-DENSE 8,609
  • PHOTO-FINISH collants

Nearest frequency peer: collants (-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.

Pairs de rang près de l'aimant d'erreurs « colonialisme »

Même bande de rareté: utile si une faute tombe sur un lemme voisin

corpus weight

What this shows « colonialisme » siège parmi ces pairs FrequencyWords; la profondeur des fautes est suivie à part dans le graphique d'édition.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026

Visual similarity to commonly confused words

How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).

colonialisme vs colonialiste
92% similar

Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).

Key facts for colonialisme
PropertyValue
Headwordcolonialisme
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\kɔ.lɔ.nja.lism\
Letters12
Frequency rank#20,671
Misspellings tracked17
Confusable pairs1
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Fréquence de l'aimant d'erreurs « colonialisme »

Cette échelle va du noyau du français courant (gauche) jusqu'à la traîne des formes rares (droite).colonialismese place ici:

#1#100#1K#10K#100K
← used constantlyrarely used →

L'échelle est logarithmique (chaque tic ≈ 10× plus rare). Dans la même bande de rareté figurent « collants » (#20,670), « comprenaient » (#20,672), « clémentine » (#20,669). Parmi 8,609 lemmes en « C », « colonialisme » est au #20,671. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

A misspelling magnet

The generator records 17 spelling variants around colonialisme (IPA \kɔ.lɔ.nja.lism\), anoun. Corpus frequency is #20,671 among 8,609 “C” headwords. Wiktionary lists 3 senses, so context still picks the gloss.

Our generated misspelling index lists 17 likely wrong-spelling variants for colonialisme, with forms such as "ccolonialisme", "cloonialisme", and "collonialisme". Each of these forms differs from the correct spelling by one small edit: a doubled letter, a dropped silent letter, or a substituted vowel. It also participates in 1 confusable-pair relationship, "colonialiste", where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.

This entry's etymology isn't recorded, so its spelling is easiest explained by how it's pronounced rather than where it came from. The correct French form is colonialisme, spelled C-O-L-O-N-I-A-L-I-S-M-E.

Definition

  1. 1
    Doctrine, et ensemble de discours visant à légitimer la colonisation, fondés sur la conviction d’une supériorité culturelle, raciale ou civilisationnelle du colonisateur, et sur la nécessité de dominer et de « civiliser » les peuples colonisés.
  2. 2
    Ensemble de rapports coloniaux politiques, économiques et sociaux marqués par la domination coloniale d’une métropole coloniale sur ses colonies, impliquant exploitation, inégalités et justification idéologique.
  3. 3
    Attitude ou politique visant à imposer la domination politique, économique ou culturelle d’un État ou d’un groupe sur un autre, en dehors d’un contexte colonial strict.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

These source excerpts show how colonialisme appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. Enfermé dans un cycle infernal, le colonialisme se révèle, plus que jamais, intrinsèquement, rétif à toute évolution.
  2. Plus largement, le colonialisme a pu être pensé comme un processus de « domestication » de la pensée, dans lequel la production de grammaires et d’un langage « standard » a servi d’outil de domination (Goody 1986 ; Mignolo 1992 ; Pennycook 2002 ; Errington 2008).

Synonyms

impérialisme

Antonyms

anticolonialisme

This word in other languages

colonialism(English)colonialismo(Español)Kolonialismus(Deutsch)

Common misspellings

Also misspelled as:

  • ccolonialisme
  • cloonialisme
  • collonialisme
  • colnoialisme
  • coloinalisme
  • colonailisme
  • coloniailsme
  • colonialimse
  • colonialisem
  • colonialismme
  • colonialissme
  • coloniallisme
  • colonialsime
  • colonilaisme
  • colonnialisme
  • coolnialisme
  • oclonialisme

Misspelling Pattern Breakdown

How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of colonialisme - counted as single-character edits (an insertion, a deletion, or a substituted letter). The larger the bar, the easier the typo is to spot; one-edit slips are the ones that sneak past readers.

ccolonialisme1cloonialisme2collonialisme1colnoialisme2coloinalisme2colonailisme2coloniailsme2colonialimse2
Edit distance from "colonialisme"

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

How do you spell "colonialisme"?
"colonialisme" is spelled C-O-L-O-N-I-A-L-I-S-M-E. The IPA pronunciation is \kɔ.lɔ.nja.lism\.
What does "colonialisme" mean?
As a noun, "colonialisme" means: Doctrine, et ensemble de discours visant à légitimer la colonisation, fondés sur la conviction d’une supériorité culturelle, raciale ou civilisationnelle du colonisateur, et sur la nécessité de dom...
What words are commonly confused with "colonialisme"?
"colonialisme" is commonly confused with "colonialiste". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "colonialisme"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "colonialisme" is \kɔ.lɔ.nja.lism\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "colonialisme" come from?
"colonialisme" is a French word. PlainSpell's reference spans five languages -- English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German -- with definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for each.
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.

Similar French words by spelling shape

Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "colonialisme", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked French headwords with 12 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

comprenaient#20,672défavorables#20,703équivalentes#20,619garantissant#20,738

Similar misspelling depth

Headwords with a similar count of attested misspellings (17 here; floor ≥5).

distribuées17 variantsunderground17 variantsironiquement17 variantspensionnaires17 variants

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list