couvée
\ku.ve\
The verdict
“couvée” is uncommon French (frequency #64,347 among 8,609 “C” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #64,347
- frequency rank, French
- 8,609
- “C” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Ensemble des œufs qu’un oiseau couve en même temps, puis les petits qui en sont éclos.
Corpus desk
Index FR-couvee · couvée · French
couvée · rank #64,347 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #64,347
- LEN-LONG 6 letters
- VOW-4 4 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 8,609
- PHOTO-FINISH coureuse
Nearest frequency peer: coureuse (-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 « couvée »
Bande clairsemée: les barres inversent le rang pour que le rare se lise plus court
- cottages
cottages
35,658 corpus weight
- coupeur
coupeur
35,656 corpus weight
- coureuse
coureuse
35,655 corpus weight
- couvée
couvée
35,654 corpus weight
- crashs
crashs
35,653 corpus weight
- cristallins
cristallins
35,651 corpus weight
What this shows Vue de longue queue: où « couvée » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | couvée |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \ku.ve\ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #64,347 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « couvée » en français
Rare enough to double-check
couvée is uncommon French at frequency #64,347 among 8,609 “C” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed \ku.ve\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for couvée, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable French rules. Our dataset records no confusable match here, which usually means its spelling is distinct enough that readers don't reach for a similar-looking word instead.
No borrowing history is documented for this entry, so its spelling is easiest explained by how it's pronounced rather than where it came from. The correct French form is couvée, spelled C-O-U-V-É-E.
Definition
- 1Ensemble des œufs qu’un oiseau couve en même temps, puis les petits qui en sont éclos.
- 2Famille nombreuse.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how couvée appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Le même nid sert pour plusieurs couvées. La couleur des petits est d'abord d'un vineux grisâtre avec des raies fauves comme maillées.
Il y avait tant d’œufs à la couvée. - Cette poule a amené quinze poussins d’une couvée. - Ces deux poulets sont de la même couvée. - La poule et toute sa couvée.
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 "couvée", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked French headwords with 6 letters (nearest by frequency rank).