contrainte
\kɔ̃.tʁɛ̃t\
The verdict
“contrainte” is a regularly-used French word, ranked #5,332 in French word frequency and used as a noun.
- #5,332
- frequency rank, French
- 10
- letters
- 15
- tracked misspellings
- 8
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - 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.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | contrainte |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \kɔ̃.tʁɛ̃t\ |
| Letters | 10 |
| Frequency rank | #5,332 |
| Misspellings tracked | 15 |
| Confusable pairs | 8 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “contrainte” sits in French frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The French entry for contrainte is 10 letters long, classified as a noun, 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 generated misspelling index lists 15 likely wrong-spelling variants for contrainte, with forms such as "ccontrainte", "cnotrainte", and "conntrainte". 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 8 confusable-pair relationships, "contraire", "contraste", "contraints", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, so its spelling is best read as a straightforward mapping from sound to letter. The correct French form is contrainte, spelled C-O-N-T-R-A-I-N-T-E.
Definition
- 1Violence 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.
- 2État de celui à qui on fait cette violence.
- 3Retenue que le respect, la considération, ou quelque autre cause, obligent d’avoir.
- 4Tout acte par lequel on force quelqu’un à faire ou à donner une chose.
- 5Mandement, exécutoire décerné par l’administration du fisc contre son débiteur.
- 6Condition à satisfaire.
- 7Résultat des efforts internes qui naissent dans un objet lorsqu’on le déforme : contrainte mécanique.
- 8Règle de gestion qui réduit la liberté d'action sur une table ou un champ de la base de donnée.
- 9Équation ou inéquation qui restreint le domaine où on cherche à optimiser la fonction objectif.
- 10Contrainte 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
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of contrainte - expressed in single-character edits (insert, delete, or swap one letter). Bigger bars stand out at a glance; a one-edit slip is the hardest to catch.
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 "contrainte"?
What does "contrainte" mean?
What words are commonly confused with "contrainte"?
How do you pronounce "contrainte"?
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Is PlainSpell free to use?
Using “contrainte”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct French spelling is C-O-N-T-R-A-I-N-T-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as \kɔ̃.tʁɛ̃t\ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “contraire” - see the side-by-side comparison. contrainte vs contraire
- Browse more French words and confusable pairs in the same reference. French words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.