crétinisme

\kʁe.ti.nism\

/\kʁe.ti.nism\/ noun

The verdict

“crétinisme” is uncommon French (frequency #94,668 among 8,609 “C” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

#94,668
frequency rank, French
8,609
“C” headwords

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Arriération mentale, intellectuelle et parfois physique due à une insuffisance thyroïdienne congénitale.

Corpus desk

Index FR-cretinisme · crétinisme · French

crétinisme · rank #94,668 · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-RARE #94,668
  • LEN-MEGA 10 letters
  • VOW-4 4 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-DENSE 8,609
  • PHOTO-FINISH crépitent

Nearest frequency peer: crépitent (-2 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 « crétinisme »

Bande clairsemée: les barres inversent le rang pour que le rare se lise plus court

corpus weight

What this shows Vue de longue queue: où « crétinisme » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026
Key facts for crétinisme
PropertyValue
Headwordcrétinisme
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\kʁe.ti.nism\
Letters10
Frequency rank#94,668
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Longue queue: rang de « crétinisme » en français

La fréquence va de la poignée de mots du quotidien (gauche) à la longue queue presque jamais vue (droite).crétinismetombe dans cette queue de rareté:

#1#100#1K#10K#100K
← used constantlyrarely used →

L'échelle est logarithmique (chaque tic ≈ 10× plus rare). Voisins rares de la même bande: « crépitent » (#94,666), « cryptos » (#94,665), « cumulonimbus » (#94,671). Parmi 8,609 lemmes en « C », « crétinisme » est au #94,668. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

crétinisme is uncommon French at frequency #94,668 among 8,609 “C” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed \kʁe.ti.nism\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.

We couldn't generate a plausible misspelling set for crétinisme, suggesting the orthography follows predictable French patterns. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, which usually means its spelling is distinct enough that readers don't reach for a similar-looking word instead.

No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, so its spelling is easiest to reason about phoneme by phoneme, absent a documented history. The correct French form is crétinisme, spelled C-R-É-T-I-N-I-S-M-E.

Definition

  1. 1
    Arriération mentale, intellectuelle et parfois physique due à une insuffisance thyroïdienne congénitale.
  2. 2
    Stupidité, imbécillité.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

These source excerpts show how crétinisme appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. Au milieu du XIXᵉ siècle, on se mit à rechercher scientifiquement pourquoi le crétinisme affectait certaines vallées alpines.
  2. Ailleurs des enfants en haillons, atteints de malformations diverses ou donnant des signes évidents de crétinisme, jouaient à se rouler parterre.

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

How do you spell "crétinisme"?
"crétinisme" is spelled C-R-É-T-I-N-I-S-M-E. The IPA pronunciation is \kʁe.ti.nism\.
What does "crétinisme" mean?
As a noun, "crétinisme" means: Arriération mentale, intellectuelle et parfois physique due à une insuffisance thyroïdienne congénitale.
How do you pronounce "crétinisme"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "crétinisme" is \kʁe.ti.nism\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "crétinisme" come from?
"crétinisme" is a French word. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for this and other words across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German on PlainSpell.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Similar French words by spelling shape

Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "crétinisme", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked French headwords with 10 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list