coup de couteau dans le dos
\ku də ku.to dɑ̃ lə do\
The verdict
“coup de couteau dans le dos” is uncommon French (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency French
- 27
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Trahison inattendue.
Corpus desk
Index FR-coup-de-couteau-dans-le- · coup de couteau dans le dos · French
coup de couteau dans le dos · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 27 letters
- VOW-11 11 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 | coup de couteau dans le dos |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \ku də ku.to dɑ̃ lə do\ |
| Letters | 27 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « coup de couteau dans le dos » en français
Rare enough to double-check
coup de couteau dans le dos is uncommon French outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun, transcribed \ku də ku.to dɑ̃ lə do\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Trahison inattendue.".
coup de couteau dans le dos doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, typically a sign the spelling maps closely to how the word sounds. Our dataset records no confusable match here, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
Wiktionary doesn't record an etymology for this headword, so any spelling logic here comes from how the word's sounds map to letters, not a documented origin story. The correct French form is coup de couteau dans le dos, spelled C-O-U-P- -D-E- -C-O-U-T-E-A-U- -D-A-N-S- -L-E- -D-O-S.
Definition
- 1Trahison inattendue.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how coup de couteau dans le dos appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
… et l'Empire allemand est-ce qu'il ne donnait pas un coup de couteau dans le dos à la Belgique ?
Si tu te bats pour ton indépendance, ça n'enlève rien au fait qu’un coup de couteau dans le dos c'est un coup de couteau dans le dos. La guerre c'est la guerre.
Synonyms
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.