contemporain

\kɔ̃.tɑ̃.pɔ.ʁɛ̃\

/\kɔ̃.tɑ̃.pɔ.ʁɛ̃\/ adj

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

The verdict

“contemporain” has 18 generated spelling variants in the French index at frequency #4,563. The variants make it a useful spelling check.

#4,563
frequency rank, French
8,609
“C” headwords
18
tracked misspellings
3
confusable pairs

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Qui est du même temps que quelqu’un ou quelque chose.

Corpus desk

Index FR-contemporain · contemporain · French

contemporain · rank #4,563 · 18 variants · 3 confusables

  • FREQ-COMMON #4,563
  • LEN-MEGA 12 letters
  • VOW-5 5 vowels
  • CONFUS-LOW 3 pairs
  • VAR-HIGH 18 variants
  • BOOK-DENSE 8,609
  • PHOTO-FINISH contacts

Nearest frequency peer: contacts (-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 « contemporain »

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

corpus weight

What this shows « contemporain » 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).

contemporain vs contemporaine
92% similar
contemporain vs contemporains
92% similar
contemporain vs contemporaines
86% similar

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

Key facts for contemporain
PropertyValue
Headwordcontemporain
LanguageFrench
Part of speechAdjective
IPA\kɔ̃.tɑ̃.pɔ.ʁɛ̃\
Letters12
Frequency rank#4,563
Misspellings tracked18
Confusable pairs3
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Fréquence de l'aimant d'erreurs « contemporain »

La fréquence va de la poignée de mots du quotidien (gauche) à la longue queue presque jamais vue (droite).contemporainse place ici:

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

L'axe est logarithmique: chaque tic marque environ dix fois moins de fréquence. Dans la même bande de rareté figurent « contacts » (#4,562), « dictionnaire » (#4,564), « conserve » (#4,561). Parmi 8,609 lemmes en « C », « contemporain » est au #4,563. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

A misspelling magnet

The generator records 18 spelling variants around contemporain (IPA \kɔ̃.tɑ̃.pɔ.ʁɛ̃\), anadjective. Corpus frequency is #4,563 among 8,609 “C” headwords. Wiktionary lists 3 senses, so context still picks the gloss.

Our generated misspelling index lists 18 likely wrong-spelling variants for contemporain, with forms such as "ccontemporain", "cnotemporain", and "conetmporain". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It also participates in 3 confusable-pair relationships, "contemporaine", "contemporains", "contemporaines", since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.

Wiktionary doesn't record an etymology for this headword, so its spelling is easiest to reason about phoneme by phoneme, absent a documented history. The correct French form is contemporain, spelled C-O-N-T-E-M-P-O-R-A-I-N.

Definition

  1. 1
    Qui est du même temps que quelqu’un ou quelque chose.
  2. 2
    Qualifie les historiens qui ont écrit les choses qui se sont passées dans leur temps.
  3. 3
    D’aujourd’hui, produit à l’époque actuelle, appartenant au temps présent.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

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

  1. Pour nos idéologues contemporains, l’être humain est conçu comme un cyborg naturel, libre à lui de s’appliquer, de s’auto-greffer les dernières technologies pour évoluer vers une forme supérieure comme dans la fable de Pic de la Mirandole.
  2. Elle m’avait fait découvrir des romancières anglaises contemporaines que j’appréciais presque autant que Daphné Du Maurier : Penelope Lively, Rose Tremain, Joanna Trollope, A. S. Byatt.

Synonyms

actuel

This word in other languages

contemporary(English)contemporáneo(Español)gleichzeitig(Deutsch)

Common misspellings

Also misspelled as:

  • ccontemporain
  • cnotemporain
  • conetmporain
  • conntemporain
  • contemmporain
  • contemoprain
  • contempoarin
  • contemporainn
  • contemporani
  • contemporian
  • contemporrain
  • contempporain
  • contemproain
  • contepmorain
  • contmeporain
  • conttemporain
  • cotnemporain
  • ocntemporain

Misspelling Pattern Breakdown

How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of contemporain - 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.

ccontemporain1cnotemporain2conetmporain2conntemporain1contemmporain1contemoprain2contempoarin2contemporainn1
Edit distance from "contemporain"

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 "contemporain"?
"contemporain" is spelled C-O-N-T-E-M-P-O-R-A-I-N. The IPA pronunciation is \kɔ̃.tɑ̃.pɔ.ʁɛ̃\.
What does "contemporain" mean?
As an adjective, "contemporain" means: Qui est du même temps que quelqu’un ou quelque chose.
What words are commonly confused with "contemporain"?
"contemporain" is commonly confused with "contemporaine", "contemporains", "contemporaines". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "contemporain"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "contemporain" is \kɔ̃.tɑ̃.pɔ.ʁɛ̃\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "contemporain" come from?
"contemporain" 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 "contemporain", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

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

dictionnaire#4,564commerciales#4,558agriculteurs#4,545méditerranée#4,590

Similar misspelling depth

Headwords with a similar count of attested misspellings (18 here; floor ≥5).

photographie18 variantsconsultation18 variantsimpressionnant18 variantsprécédentes18 variants

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list