cure-oreille
\ky.ʁ‿ɔ.ʁɛj\
The verdict
“cure-oreille” is uncommon French (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency French
- 12
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Petit instrument avec lequel on se cure le conduit auditif, on se le nettoie.
Corpus desk
Index FR-cure-oreille · cure-oreille · French
cure-oreille · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 12 letters
- VOW-6 6 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 | cure-oreille |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \ky.ʁ‿ɔ.ʁɛj\ |
| Letters | 12 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « cure-oreille » en français
Rare enough to double-check
cure-oreille is uncommon French outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun, transcribed \ky.ʁ‿ɔ.ʁɛj\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Petit instrument avec lequel on se cure le conduit auditif, on se le nettoie.".
No generated misspelling entries exist for cure-oreille in our index, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. 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 borrowing history is documented for this entry, 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 cure-oreille, spelled C-U-R-E---O-R-E-I-L-L-E.
Definition
- 1Petit instrument avec lequel on se cure le conduit auditif, on se le nettoie.
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how cure-oreille appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Des cure-oreilles. Des égueulés offraient des cure-dents et des cure-oreilles, et un affreux voyou dont les yeux se fleurissaient de compères-loriots hurlait : l’anneau brisé, la sûreté des clefs, dix centimes, deux sous !
Synonyms
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.