cygne noir
\siɲ nwaʁ\
The verdict
“cygne noir” 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) - Espèce de cygnes de plumage noir, présente en Océanie.
Corpus desk
Index FR-cygne-noir · cygne noir · French
cygne noir · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 10 letters
- VOW-4 4 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 | cygne noir |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \siɲ nwaʁ\ |
| Letters | 10 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « cygne noir » en français
Rare enough to double-check
cygne noir is uncommon French outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun, transcribed \siɲ nwaʁ\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
No misspelling variants are generated for cygne noir in our index, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable French rules. This headword has no recorded confusable partner, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.
Our source data has no etymology on file 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 cygne noir, spelled C-Y-G-N-E- -N-O-I-R.
Definition
- 1Espèce de cygnes de plumage noir, présente en Océanie.
- 2Évènement extrême dont le coût est très élevé mais dont la probabilité est très faible.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how cygne noir appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
J’éprouve quelques difficultés avec la notion de cygne noir, car je ne vois guère d’exemples convaincants de chocs violents que rien dans le passé n'aurait laissé entrevoir.
[Titre] « Comme les pandémies, le retour de l’inflation est un cygne noir, improbable et dévastateur »
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.