début
French, noun/de.by/
début is spelled D-É-B-U-T (5 letters) and appears 251 times per million words in written French, the 335th most frequent French word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). Début is a French masculine noun meaning “start, beginning” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) defines it as “Commencement”.
What does début mean in English?
noun
- 1
masculinestart, beginning
Source: English Wiktionary, French section, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0).
How French dictionaries define it
noun: 1. Commencement. 2. Premiers essais sur les planches, au théâtre. 3. Premier ouvrage d’un auteur. 4. Départ dans la vie, dans une profession ou dans une entreprise.
The definition in the French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire), in French.
Source: French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire), dump of September 1, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org.
Forms of début
- débuts plural
Source: English Wiktionary and French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026).
How do you pronounce début?
- /de.by/
- \de.by\
- [de.by]
Sources: English Wiktionary, French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026); recordings from Wikimedia Commons.
English words that translate to début
Source: the translation tables of the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026.
How common is début in French?
début appears 251 times per million words in written French.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).