courbature
\kuʁ.ba.tyʁ\
The verdict
“courbature” is uncommon French (frequency #89,567 among 8,609 “C” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #89,567
- frequency rank, French
- 8,609
- “C” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Lassitude extrême du corps et surtout des jambes provoquée par la fatigue, la maladie ou l’excès de sport.
Corpus desk
Index FR-courbature · courbature · French
courbature · rank #89,567 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #89,567
- LEN-MEGA 10 letters
- VOW-5 5 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 8,609
- PHOTO-FINISH courbant
Nearest frequency peer: courbant (-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 « courbature »
Bande clairsemée: les barres inversent le rang pour que le rare se lise plus court
- coulez
coulez
10,437 corpus weight
- coupants
coupants
10,436 corpus weight
- courbant
courbant
10,435 corpus weight
- courbature
courbature
10,434 corpus weight
- courront
courront
10,432 corpus weight
- coverage
coverage
10,431 corpus weight
What this shows Vue de longue queue: où « courbature » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | courbature |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \kuʁ.ba.tyʁ\ |
| Letters | 10 |
| Frequency rank | #89,567 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « courbature » en français
Rare enough to double-check
courbature is uncommon French at frequency #89,567 among 8,609 “C” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed \kuʁ.ba.tyʁ\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 3 senses are on record.
We couldn't generate a plausible misspelling set for courbature, a sign its spelling follows regular French conventions. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.
This entry carries no recorded etymology, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. The correct French form is courbature, spelled C-O-U-R-B-A-T-U-R-E.
Definition
- 1Lassitude extrême du corps et surtout des jambes provoquée par la fatigue, la maladie ou l’excès de sport.
- 2Douleurs musculaires sans gravité, consécutives à un effort physique.
- 3Lassitude de l'esprit.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how courbature appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Le lendemain, c'est la roupillade prolongée, la courbature au réveil, l'impossibilité de besogner utilement.
Elle se leva, étira la courbature de ses épaules, et toisa son mari.
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); 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
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Similar French words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "courbature", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked French headwords with 10 letters (nearest by frequency rank).