costards

\kɔs.taʁ\

/\kɔs.taʁ\/ noun

The verdict

“costards” is uncommon French (frequency #57,186 among 8,609 “C” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

#57,186
frequency rank, French
8,609
“C” headwords

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Pluriel de costard.

Corpus desk

Index FR-costards · costards · French

costards · rank #57,186 · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-RARE #57,186
  • LEN-LONG 8 letters
  • VOW-2 2 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-DENSE 8,609
  • PHOTO-FINISH corporatifs

Nearest frequency peer: corporatifs (-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.

Rangs de longue queue près de « costards »

Bande clairsemée: les barres inversent le rang pour que le rare se lise plus court

corpus weight

What this shows Vue de longue queue: où « costards » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026
Key facts for costards
PropertyValue
Headwordcostards
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\kɔs.taʁ\
Letters8
Frequency rank#57,186
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Longue queue: rang de « costards » en français

De gauche à droite: le peu qui porte la parole quotidienne, puis la longue queue quasi invisible.costardstombe dans cette queue de rareté:

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

L'échelle est logarithmique (chaque tic ≈ 10× plus rare). Voisins rares de la même bande: « corporatifs » (#57,185), « couacs » (#57,187), « continuée » (#57,184). Parmi 8,609 lemmes en « C », « costards » est au #57,186. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

costards is uncommon French at frequency #57,186 among 8,609 “C” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed \kɔs.taʁ\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Pluriel de costard.".

The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for costards, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.

This entry's etymology isn't recorded, so its spelling is best explained by sound-to-letter mapping rather than etymology. The correct French form is costards, spelled C-O-S-T-A-R-D-S.

Definition

  1. 1
    Pluriel de costard.

Recorded use

Wiktionary example

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

  1. Dans la penderie de ma chambre, ma bonne valise était prête, comme toujours, avec les trois costards, les six limaces, et le toutim; le petit nécessaire de l’homme en cavale, et puis, en dessous, deux bonnes briques en talbins de dix mille, tout neufs, que j’avais été le jour même retirer de mon coffre.

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 "costards"?
"costards" is spelled C-O-S-T-A-R-D-S. The IPA pronunciation is \kɔs.taʁ\.
What does "costards" mean?
As a noun, "costards" means: Pluriel de costard.
How do you pronounce "costards"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "costards" is \kɔs.taʁ\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "costards" come from?
"costards" 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 "costards", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked French headwords with 8 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list