coupage de cheveux en quatre
\ku.paʒ də ʃə.və ɑ̃ katʁ\
The verdict
“coupage de cheveux en quatre” is uncommon French (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency French
- 28
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Subtilité excessive et vaine dans une argumentation.
Corpus desk
Index FR-coupage-de-cheveux-en-qu · coupage de cheveux en quatre · French
coupage de cheveux en quatre · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 28 letters
- VOW-12 12 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 | coupage de cheveux en quatre |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \ku.paʒ də ʃə.və ɑ̃ katʁ\ |
| Letters | 28 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « coupage de cheveux en quatre » en français
Rare enough to double-check
coupage de cheveux en quatre is uncommon French outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun, transcribed \ku.paʒ də ʃə.və ɑ̃ katʁ\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Subtilité excessive et vaine dans une argumentation.".
No misspelling variants are generated for coupage de cheveux en quatre in our index, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable French rules. No confusable counterpart is on file for this word, which typically means the spelling is too distinctive to be mistaken for another word.
No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, 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 coupage de cheveux en quatre, spelled C-O-U-P-A-G-E- -D-E- -C-H-E-V-E-U-X- -E-N- -Q-U-A-T-R-E.
Definition
- 1Subtilité excessive et vaine dans une argumentation.
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how coupage de cheveux en quatre appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
– Vos notes, mon vieux, j’en ai plein le dos ! C’est de la perte de temps ! Du coupage de cheveux en quatre !
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.