commençai
\kɔ.mɑ̃.se\
The verdict
“commençai” is uncommon French (frequency #80,059 among 8,609 “C” headwords), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #80,059
- frequency rank, French
- 8,609
- “C” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Première personne du singulier du passé simple de commencer.
Corpus desk
Index FR-commencai · commençai · French
commençai · rank #80,059 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #80,059
- LEN-LONG 9 letters
- VOW-4 4 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 8,609
- PHOTO-FINISH commentera
Nearest frequency peer: commentera (-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 « commençai »
Bande clairsemée: les barres inversent le rang pour que le rare se lise plus court
- colonisent
colonisent
19,946 corpus weight
- comba
comba
19,945 corpus weight
- COMEX
COMEX
19,944 corpus weight
- commentera
commentera
19,943 corpus weight
- commençai
commençai
19,942 corpus weight
- comploteurs
comploteurs
19,940 corpus weight
What this shows Vue de longue queue: où « commençai » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | commençai |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | \kɔ.mɑ̃.se\ |
| Letters | 9 |
| Frequency rank | #80,059 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « commençai » en français
Rare enough to double-check
commençai is uncommon French at frequency #80,059 among 8,609 “C” headwords, classed as averb, transcribed \kɔ.mɑ̃.se\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Première personne du singulier du passé simple de commencer.".
We couldn't generate a plausible misspelling set for commençai, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable French rules. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, which usually means its spelling is distinct enough that readers don't reach for a similar-looking word instead.
This entry carries no recorded etymology, so its spelling is best read as a straightforward mapping from sound to letter. The correct French form is commençai, spelled C-O-M-M-E-N-Ç-A-I.
Definition
- 1Première personne du singulier du passé simple de commencer.
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how commençai appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Dès ce moment, je sus que, pour avoir le maximum de nos vainqueurs, il fallait être plus jugulaires qu’eux-mêmes ; leurs chefs adoraient le respect des gradés, et nous pouvions profiter de leur faiblesse ? − ainsi, je commençai à devenir un « sale collaborateur ».
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 "commençai", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked French headwords with 9 letters (nearest by frequency rank).