dead heat

noun

The verdict

“dead heat” is outside the top-ranked French vocabulary, used as a noun - the kind of word writers most often double-check.

Unranked
below top-frequency French
9
letters

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Dans une course hippique, situation de plusieurs chevaux déclarés ex aequo à l'arrivée.

Key facts for dead heat
PropertyValue
Headworddead heat
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
Letters9
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Where “dead heat” sits in French frequency

dead heat falls outside the top-100,000 ranked French words, the long-tail zone of technical, archaic, or low-frequency vocabulary, exactly where readers second-guess spellings most.

Beyond rank #100,000. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

The French entry for dead heat is 9 letters long, classified as a noun. It sits outside the most-frequent rank tiers, which is often why uncommon words generate more spelling variants per reader. Wiktionary records 2 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.

No misspelling variants are generated for dead heat 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 dead heat, spelled D-E-A-D- -H-E-A-T, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.

Definition

  1. 1
    Dans une course hippique, situation de plusieurs chevaux déclarés ex aequo à l'arrivée.
  2. 2
    Situation où une ou plusieurs personnes parviennent au même niveau qu’une autre ou qu’un objet.

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, “dead heat, 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/dead-heat

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "dead heat"?
"dead heat" is spelled D-E-A-D- -H-E-A-T.
What does "dead heat" mean?
As a noun, "dead heat" means: Dans une course hippique, situation de plusieurs chevaux déclarés ex aequo à l'arrivée.
What language does "dead heat" come from?
"dead heat" is a French word. PlainSpell covers definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German.
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.

Using “dead heat”

The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.

  • The one correct French spelling is D-E-A-D- -H-E-A-T - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
  • 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:

Explore PlainSpell

Data Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list FrequencyWords open word-frequency list