coup de tête
\ku də tɛt\
The verdict
“coup de tête” is outside the top-ranked French vocabulary, used as a noun - the kind of word writers most often double-check.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency French
- 12
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Coup donné avec la tête.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | coup de tête |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \ku də tɛt\ |
| Letters | 12 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “coup de tête” sits in French frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The French entry for coup de tête is 12 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \ku də tɛt\. It sits outside the most-frequent rank tiers, which is often why uncommon words generate more spelling variants per reader. Wiktionary records 2 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for coup de tête, typically a sign the spelling maps closely to how the word sounds. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, since no other headword is close enough in sound or shape to pair with it.
No documented word history exists for this headword, so its spelling is easiest to reason about phoneme by phoneme, absent a documented history. The correct French form is coup de tête, spelled C-O-U-P- -D-E- -T-Ê-T-E.
Definition
- 1Coup donné avec la tête.
- 2Acte imprévu et hardi, fait étourdiment et sans réflexion.
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.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “coup de tête”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct French spelling is C-O-U-P- -D-E- -T-Ê-T-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as \ku də tɛt\ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- 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.