défrayer
\de.fʁɛ.je\
The verdict
“défrayer” is uncommon French (frequency #67,466 among 5,307 “D” headwords), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #67,466
- frequency rank, French
- 5,307
- “D” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Décharger des frais de nourriture, d’entretien, de voyage, etc., en s’en chargeant soi-même.
Corpus desk
Index FR-defrayer · défrayer · French
défrayer · rank #67,466 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #67,466
- LEN-LONG 8 letters
- VOW-4 4 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 5,307
- PHOTO-FINISH défendrons
Nearest frequency peer: défendrons (-1 rank slots)
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.
Rangs de longue queue près de « défrayer »
Bande clairsemée: les barres inversent le rang pour que le rare se lise plus court
- décuplée
décuplée
32,538 corpus weight
- dédia
dédia
32,537 corpus weight
- défendrons
défendrons
32,536 corpus weight
- défrayer
défrayer
32,535 corpus weight
- dénégation
dénégation
32,534 corpus weight
- déphasage
déphasage
32,533 corpus weight
What this shows Vue de longue queue: où « défrayer » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | défrayer |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | \de.fʁɛ.je\ |
| Letters | 8 |
| Frequency rank | #67,466 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « défrayer » en français
Rare enough to double-check
défrayer is uncommon French at frequency #67,466 among 5,307 “D” headwords, classed as averb, transcribed \de.fʁɛ.je\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 4 senses are on record.
Zero misspellings are on record for défrayer in our index, suggesting the orthography follows predictable French patterns. Our dataset records no confusable match here, which typically means the spelling is too distinctive to be mistaken for another word.
Wiktionary doesn't record an etymology for this headword, so its spelling is easiest to reason about phoneme by phoneme, absent a documented history. The correct French form is défrayer, spelled D-É-F-R-A-Y-E-R.
Definition
- 1Décharger des frais de nourriture, d’entretien, de voyage, etc., en s’en chargeant soi-même.
- 2Amuser.
- 3Donner un caractère amusant à.
- 4Occuper la pensée, attirer l'attention.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how défrayer appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
À Paris, le jeune duc avait, il est vrai, les voitures du Roi, son hôtel rue Saint-Thomas-du-Louvre, à la Grande Écurie ; mais ses appointements défrayaient son hiver et les vingt-sept mille francs défrayaient l’été dans la Normandie.
Défrayer la compagnie de bons mots, de plaisanteries
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); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 French corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Similar French words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "défrayer", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked French headwords with 8 letters (nearest by frequency rank).