coltan
\kɔl.tɑ̃\
The verdict
“coltan” is uncommon French (frequency #81,895 among 8,609 “C” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #81,895
- frequency rank, French
- 8,609
- “C” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Minerai de couleur noire ou brun-rouge contenant deux minéraux associés, la colombite (Fe, Mn) (Nb, Ta)₂O₆ et la tantalite (Fe, Mn) (Ta, Nb)₂O₆.
Corpus desk
Index FR-coltan · coltan · French
coltan · rank #81,895 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #81,895
- LEN-LONG 6 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 8,609
- PHOTO-FINISH colorisation
Nearest frequency peer: colorisation (-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 « coltan »
Bande clairsemée: les barres inversent le rang pour que le rare se lise plus court
- coalisées
coalisées
18,109 corpus weight
- codecs
codecs
18,108 corpus weight
- colorisation
colorisation
18,107 corpus weight
- coltan
coltan
18,106 corpus weight
- combatifs
combatifs
18,105 corpus weight
- commandons
commandons
18,104 corpus weight
What this shows Vue de longue queue: où « coltan » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | coltan |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \kɔl.tɑ̃\ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #81,895 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « coltan » en français
Rare enough to double-check
coltan is uncommon French at frequency #81,895 among 8,609 “C” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed \kɔl.tɑ̃\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Minerai de couleur noire ou brun-rouge contenant deux minéraux associés, la colombite (Fe, Mn) (Nb, Ta)₂O₆ et la tantalite (Fe, Mn) (Ta, Nb)₂O₆.".
coltan doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, suggesting the orthography follows predictable French patterns. Our dataset records no confusable match here, which typically means the spelling is too distinctive to be mistaken for another word.
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 coltan, spelled C-O-L-T-A-N.
Definition
- 1Minerai de couleur noire ou brun-rouge contenant deux minéraux associés, la colombite (Fe, Mn) (Nb, Ta)₂O₆ et la tantalite (Fe, Mn) (Ta, Nb)₂O₆.
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how coltan appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Aujourd’hui, c’est le coltan, l’etin, le diamant, l’or, le cuivre du Congo et bien d’autres ressources qui sont recherchées de tous les riches du monde.
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); 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 "coltan", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked French headwords with 6 letters (nearest by frequency rank).