couvre-feu
\ku.vʁə.fø\
The verdict
“couvre-feu” is uncommon French (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency French
- 10
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Signal sonné par le clairon ou la trompette chaque soir pour l’extinction des feux.
Corpus desk
Index FR-couvre-feu · couvre-feu · French
couvre-feu · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 10 letters
- VOW-5 5 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 | couvre-feu |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \ku.vʁə.fø\ |
| Letters | 10 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « couvre-feu » en français
Rare enough to double-check
couvre-feu is uncommon French outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun, transcribed \ku.vʁə.fø\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 4 senses are on record.
No misspelling variants are generated for couvre-feu in our index, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable French rules. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, which usually means its spelling is distinct enough that readers don't reach for a similar-looking word instead.
This entry's etymology isn't recorded, 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 couvre-feu, spelled C-O-U-V-R-E---F-E-U.
Definition
- 1Signal sonné par le clairon ou la trompette chaque soir pour l’extinction des feux.
- 2Coup de cloche qui, dans certaines villes, marquait l’heure de rentrer chez soi et d’éteindre feu et lumière.
- 3Mesure de police qui interdit de sortir de chez soi entre telle et telle heure.
- 4Ustensile de cuivre, de terre cuite ou de fer qu’on mettait sur le feu pour le conserver pendant la nuit.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how couvre-feu appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Sonner le couvre-feu.
Un soir, au moment où le couvre-feu sonnait à tous les beffrois de Paris, les sergents du guet, s'il leur eût été donné d'entrer dans la redoutable cour des Miracles, auraient pu remarquer qu'il se faisait dans la taverne des truands […].
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.