cucul
\ky.ky\
The verdict
“cucul” is uncommon French (frequency #61,436 among 8,609 “C” headwords), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #61,436
- frequency rank, French
- 8,609
- “C” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Naïf, niais voire simplet.
Corpus desk
Index FR-cucul · cucul · French
cucul · rank #61,436 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #61,436
- LEN-MID 5 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 8,609
- PHOTO-FINISH Créon
Nearest frequency peer: Créon (-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 « cucul »
Bande clairsemée: les barres inversent le rang pour que le rare se lise plus court
- cruches
cruches
38,568 corpus weight
- crémant
crémant
38,567 corpus weight
- Créon
Créon
38,566 corpus weight
- cucul
cucul
38,565 corpus weight
- curaçao
curaçao
38,564 corpus weight
- cyrillique
cyrillique
38,562 corpus weight
What this shows Vue de longue queue: où « cucul » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | cucul |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | \ky.ky\ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #61,436 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « cucul » en français
Rare enough to double-check
cucul is uncommon French at frequency #61,436 among 8,609 “C” headwords, classed as anadjective, transcribed \ky.ky\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 3 senses are on record.
Zero misspellings are on record for cucul in our index, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. Our dataset records no confusable match here, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.
Wiktionary doesn't record an etymology for this headword, so its spelling is easiest to reason about phoneme by phoneme, absent a documented history. The correct French form is cucul, spelled C-U-C-U-L.
Definition
- 1Naïf, niais voire simplet.
- 2Naïf, niais voire simplet.
- 3Ridicule.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how cucul appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
[…], et je me suis éclipsée tandis que Prisca recommandait la collection du « Prince de Motordu » que possédaient ses enfants. C'était moins « cucul » et moins « concon » que les trucs d’Enid Blyton (sic) et Florence pouvait évidemment piocher dans la bibliothèque de ses fils, ça faisait partie des multiples avantages de la colocation.
[…] Mathilde met le collier qui va lui sauver la mise dans sa culotte, et on a l’impression de lire avec elle le scénario cucul qui lui a été préparé.
Synonyms
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 "cucul"?
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Similar French words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "cucul", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked French headwords with 5 letters (nearest by frequency rank).