de contre-vair
\də kɔ̃.tʁə.vɛʁ\
The verdict
“de contre-vair” is outside the top-ranked French vocabulary, used as an adjective - the kind of word writers most often double-check.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency French
- 14
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Indique l’usage d’une variation de la fourrure de vair sur un élément (écu, partition, pièce, meuble…) des armoiries. Il s’agit d’un vair dont les tires paires inversent les couleurs des cloches (c...
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | de contre-vair |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | \də kɔ̃.tʁə.vɛʁ\ |
| Letters | 14 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “de contre-vair” sits in French frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The French entry for de contre-vair is 14 letters long, classified as an adjective, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \də kɔ̃.tʁə.vɛʁ\. It sits outside the most-frequent rank tiers, which is often why uncommon words generate more spelling variants per reader. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "Indique l’usage d’une variation de la fourrure de vair sur un élément (écu, partition, pièce, meuble…) des armoiries. Il s’agit d’un vair dont les tires paires inversent les couleurs des cloches (c...".
No misspelling variants are generated for de contre-vair in our index, suggesting the orthography follows predictable French patterns. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct French form is de contre-vair, spelled D-E- -C-O-N-T-R-E---V-A-I-R, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1Indique l’usage d’une variation de la fourrure de vair sur un élément (écu, partition, pièce, meuble…) des armoiries. Il s’agit d’un vair dont les tires paires inversent les couleurs des cloches (créant un effet miroir). Le nombre de lignes (tires) doit être blasonné s’il diffère de l’ordinaire (4 tires).
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.
Cite this page
Free to reuse with attribution (CC BY-SA). Copy the citation:
PlainSpell, “de contre-vair, French word data” (May 6, 2026). Derived from Wiktionary (kaikki.org, CC BY-SA) and an open word-frequency list. https://plainspell.com/fr/mot/de-contre-vair
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you spell "de contre-vair"?
What does "de contre-vair" mean?
How do you pronounce "de contre-vair"?
What language does "de contre-vair" come from?
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Using “de contre-vair”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct French spelling is D-E- -C-O-N-T-R-E---V-A-I-R - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as \də kɔ̃.tʁə.vɛʁ\ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Browse more French words and confusable pairs in the same reference. French words
Nearby French words
Other entries that begin with the letter D in our French index: