commensal
\kɔ.mɑ̃.sal\
The verdict
“commensal” is uncommon French (outside the top frequency list), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency French
- 9
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Qualifie les micro-organismes qui colonisent l’organisme (généralement la peau ou les muqueuses) sans provoquer de maladie.
Corpus desk
Index FR-commensal · commensal · French
commensal · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-LONG 9 letters
- VOW-3 3 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 | commensal |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | \kɔ.mɑ̃.sal\ |
| Letters | 9 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « commensal » en français
Rare enough to double-check
commensal is uncommon French outside the top frequency list, classed as anadjective, transcribed \kɔ.mɑ̃.sal\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for commensal, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.
No borrowing history is documented for this entry, so its spelling is easiest explained by how it's pronounced rather than where it came from. The correct French form is commensal, spelled C-O-M-M-E-N-S-A-L.
Definition
- 1Qualifie les micro-organismes qui colonisent l’organisme (généralement la peau ou les muqueuses) sans provoquer de maladie.
- 2Qualifie une espèce animale qui se nourrit des déchets produits par une autre mais sans causer préjudice à cette dernière.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how commensal appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Entretemps, le laboratoire de microbiologie de l'hôpital livre ses résultats : l'homme est infecté par Capnocytophaga canimorsus, une bactérie commensale dans la salive des chiens et des chats.
Il faut aussi considérer le transfert possible de gènes d’antibiorésistance naturelle depuis des bactéries environnementales non pathogènes autochtones vers des bactéries pathogènes ou commensales circulantes sensibles.
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.