curare

\ky.ʁaʁ\

/\ky.ʁaʁ\/ noun

The verdict

“curare” is uncommon French (frequency #78,313 among 8,609 “C” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

#78,313
frequency rank, French
8,609
“C” headwords

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Nom donné à plusieurs substances extraites entre autres de certaines lianes d'Amazonie, notamment Chondodendron tomentosum et Strychnos toxifera, poison violent qui provoque une paralysie des muscl...

Corpus desk

Index FR-curare · curare · French

curare · rank #78,313 · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-RARE #78,313
  • LEN-LONG 6 letters
  • VOW-3 3 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-DENSE 8,609
  • PHOTO-FINISH cunni

Nearest frequency peer: cunni (-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 « curare »

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 « curare » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026
Key facts for curare
PropertyValue
Headwordcurare
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\ky.ʁaʁ\
Letters6
Frequency rank#78,313
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Longue queue: rang de « curare » en français

Cette échelle va du noyau du français courant (gauche) jusqu'à la traîne des formes rares (droite).curaretombe dans cette queue de rareté:

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

L'axe est logarithmique: chaque tic marque environ dix fois moins de fréquence. Voisins rares de la même bande: « cunni » (#78,312), « culminent » (#78,311), « cyclomoteur » (#78,315). Parmi 8,609 lemmes en « C », « curare » est au #78,313. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

curare is uncommon French at frequency #78,313 among 8,609 “C” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed \ky.ʁaʁ\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Nom donné à plusieurs substances extraites entre autres de certaines lianes d'Amazonie, notamment Chondodendron tomentosum et Strychnos toxifera, poison violent qui provoque une paralysie des muscl...".

Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for curare, a straightforward case of a spelling with little room for common typos. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.

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 curare, spelled C-U-R-A-R-E.

Definition

  1. 1
    Nom donné à plusieurs substances extraites entre autres de certaines lianes d'Amazonie, notamment Chondodendron tomentosum et Strychnos toxifera, poison violent qui provoque une paralysie des muscles en bloquant le passage du message nerveux au niveau de la plaque motrice, dont certaines peuplades de l’Amérique du Sud et les aborigènes se servent pour empoisonner leurs flèches et qui sert en médecine par exemple en anesthésie pour provoquer un relâchement musculaire.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

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

  1. J'ai vilipendé Ambert et Issoire, seul de vous tous. J'ai tenu votre promesse commune. Mais une telle manifestation n'a pas d'efficacité. Des bouts-rimés ? Arme inoffensive. Je les voudrais enduits de curare.
  2. Ben si c'est rare j'aime mieux les yeux rares de Lydia Que l'curare de Lucrèce Borgia

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

How do you spell "curare"?
"curare" is spelled C-U-R-A-R-E. The IPA pronunciation is \ky.ʁaʁ\.
What does "curare" mean?
As a noun, "curare" means: Nom donné à plusieurs substances extraites entre autres de certaines lianes d'Amazonie, notamment Chondodendron tomentosum et Strychnos toxifera, poison violent qui provoque une paralysie des muscl...
How do you pronounce "curare"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "curare" is \ky.ʁaʁ\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "curare" come from?
"curare" is a French word. PlainSpell's reference spans five languages -- English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German -- with definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for each.
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 "curare", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked French headwords with 6 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list