cul-de-sac
\kyd.sak\
The verdict
“cul-de-sac” 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) - Rue en impasse.
Corpus desk
Index FR-cul-de-sac · cul-de-sac · French
cul-de-sac · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 10 letters
- VOW-3 3 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 | cul-de-sac |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \kyd.sak\ |
| Letters | 10 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « cul-de-sac » en français
Rare enough to double-check
cul-de-sac is uncommon French outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun, transcribed \kyd.sak\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 3 senses are on record.
cul-de-sac doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, a straightforward case of a spelling with little room for common typos. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.
No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, so its spelling is best read as a straightforward mapping from sound to letter. The correct French form is cul-de-sac, spelled C-U-L---D-E---S-A-C.
Definition
- 1Rue en impasse.
- 2Situation bloquée qui ne conduit pas à une amélioration, qui ne présente aucun moyen d’avancer.
- 3Replis, invagination.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how cul-de-sac appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
D’un côté, à droite, une ruelle, qui va se terminer en cul-de-sac, la borde d’une rangée de masures.
Elle s’arrêta dans une sorte de cul-de-sac, bordé au nord par cette caserne.
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.