contrainte

/\kɔ̃.tʁɛ̃t\/ noun

Letters

10 characters

Frequency Rank

#5,332

in French word usage

Misspellings

15

tracked variants

Confusables

8

similar word pairs

contrainte is aFrenchnoun. It means: Violence qu’on exerce contre quelqu’un, pour l’obliger à faire quelque chose malgré lui ou pour l’empêcher de faire ce qu’il voudrait. Pronounced \kɔ̃.tʁɛ̃t\. It ranks #5,332 in French word frequency. Often confused with contraire and contraste.

Key facts for contrainte
PropertyValue
Headwordcontrainte
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\kɔ̃.tʁɛ̃t\
Letters10
Frequency rank#5,332
Misspellings tracked15
Confusable pairs8
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Frequency rank visualization

Position of contrainte in French word frequency (lower rank = more common)

Source: Wordfreq corpus

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

The French entry for contrainte is 10 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \kɔ̃.tʁɛ̃t\. Corpus data places it at rank #5,332 in overall French word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 10 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.

Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 15 documented wrong-spelling variants for contrainte, with forms such as "ccontrainte", "cnotrainte", and "conntrainte". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 8 confusable-pair relationships, "contraire", "contraste", "contraints", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.

No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct French form is contrainte, spelled C-O-N-T-R-A-I-N-T-E, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.

Definition

  1. 1
    Violence qu’on exerce contre quelqu’un, pour l’obliger à faire quelque chose malgré lui ou pour l’empêcher de faire ce qu’il voudrait.
  2. 2
    État de celui à qui on fait cette violence.
  3. 3
    Retenue que le respect, la considération, ou quelque autre cause, obligent d’avoir.
  4. 4
    Tout acte par lequel on force quelqu’un à faire ou à donner une chose.
  5. 5
    Mandement, exécutoire décerné par l’administration du fisc contre son débiteur.
  6. 6
    Condition à satisfaire.
  7. 7
    Résultat des efforts internes qui naissent dans un objet lorsqu’on le déforme : contrainte mécanique.
  8. 8
    Règle de gestion qui réduit la liberté d'action sur une table ou un champ de la base de donnée.
  9. 9
    Équation ou inéquation qui restreint le domaine où on cherche à optimiser la fonction objectif.
  10. 10
    Contrainte volontaire pour la créativité. À relever tel un défi ou pour lutter contre la page blanche. l'OuLiPo parle de contrainte libératoire.

Synonyms

This word in other languages

Common misspellings

Also misspelled as: ccontrainte,cnotrainte,conntrainte,conrtainte,contarinte,contrainet,contrainnte,contraintte,contraitne,contranite,contriante,contrrainte,conttrainte,cotnrainte,ocntrainte

Misspelling Pattern Breakdown

Relative frequency of common misspelling types for contrainte

Misspelling Variants of "contrainte"

ccontrainte11cnotrainte10conntrainte11conrtainte10contarinte10contrainet10contrainnte11contraintte11
Misspelling Variants of "contrainte"

Frequency rank: #5,332 in French

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "contrainte"?
"contrainte" is spelled C-O-N-T-R-A-I-N-T-E. The IPA pronunciation is \kɔ̃.tʁɛ̃t\.
What does "contrainte" mean?
As a noun, "contrainte" means: Violence qu’on exerce contre quelqu’un, pour l’obliger à faire quelque chose malgré lui ou pour l’empêcher de faire ce qu’il voudrait.
What words are commonly confused with "contrainte"?
"contrainte" is commonly confused with "contraire", "contraste", "contraints". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "contrainte"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "contrainte" is \kɔ̃.tʁɛ̃t\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "contrainte" come from?
"contrainte" is a French word. PlainSpell covers definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German.
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.

Nearby French words

Other entries that begin with the letter C in our French index:

Explore PlainSpell

Data Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Frequency data from Wordfreq. Misspellings derived from Hunspell dictionaries.