contre-jour
\kɔ̃.tʁə.ʒuʁ\
The verdict
“contre-jour” is uncommon French (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency French
- 11
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Éclairage d’un objet qui reçoit la lumière du côté opposé à celui où se trouve l’observateur.
Corpus desk
Index FR-contre-jour · contre-jour · French
contre-jour · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 11 letters
- VOW-4 4 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 | contre-jour |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \kɔ̃.tʁə.ʒuʁ\ |
| Letters | 11 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « contre-jour » en français
Rare enough to double-check
contre-jour is uncommon French outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun, transcribed \kɔ̃.tʁə.ʒuʁ\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
We couldn't generate a plausible misspelling set for contre-jour, suggesting the orthography follows predictable French patterns. This entry stands alone in our confusable dataset, suggesting its spelling stands apart enough that readers rarely confuse it with something else.
No borrowing history is documented for this entry, so its spelling is easiest to reason about phoneme by phoneme, absent a documented history. The correct French form is contre-jour, spelled C-O-N-T-R-E---J-O-U-R.
Definition
- 1Éclairage d’un objet qui reçoit la lumière du côté opposé à celui où se trouve l’observateur.
- 2Représentation avec cet effet de lumière.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how contre-jour appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Un contre-jour se produit lorsque le sujet est placé devant une source de lumière. Cet éclairage fausse la mesure automatique de la lumière, assombrissant ainsi le sujet.
Je regarde à contre-jour une branche chargée de fruits d’or comme dans une légende ancienne.
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.