de gré ou de force
\də ɡʁe u də fɔʁs\
The verdict
“de gré ou de force” is outside the top-ranked French vocabulary, used as an adverb - the kind of word writers most often double-check.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency French
- 18
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Volontairement ou par contrainte.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | de gré ou de force |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Adverb |
| IPA | \də ɡʁe u də fɔʁs\ |
| Letters | 18 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “de gré ou de force” sits in French frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The French entry for de gré ou de force is 18 letters long, classified as an adverb, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \də ɡʁe u də fɔʁs\. 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: "Volontairement ou par contrainte.".
No misspelling variants are generated for de gré ou de force 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 gré ou de force, spelled D-E- -G-R-É- -O-U- -D-E- -F-O-R-C-E, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1Volontairement ou par contrainte.
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 gré ou de force, 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-gre-ou-de-force
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “de gré ou de force”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct French spelling is D-E- -G-R-É- -O-U- -D-E- -F-O-R-C-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as \də ɡʁe u də fɔʁs\ (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: