démêlé
French, noun
démêlé is spelled D-É-M-Ê-L-É (6 letters) and appears about once in every 5 million words in written French, the 77,345th most frequent French word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). Démêlé is a French masculine noun meaning “dispute, quarrel” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is also a past participle of démêler. With an accent, démêle is a different word: “first/third-person singular present indicative/subjunctive”. The French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) defines it as “Discussion et débat entre deux ou plusieurs personnes, particulièrement sur des questions d’honneur ou…”.
What does démêlé mean in English?
noun
- 1
masculinedispute, quarrel
- 2
masculineproblem, trouble
Il a eu quelques démêlés avec la justice.
verb
- 1
past participle of démêler
verb
- 1
first/third-person singular present indicative/subjunctive
- 2
second-person singular imperative
Source: English Wiktionary, French section, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0).
How French dictionaries define it
noun: 1. Discussion et débat entre deux ou plusieurs personnes, particulièrement sur des questions d’honneur ou d’intérêt.
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 démêlé
- démêlés plural
- démêlée feminine
- démêlées feminine plural
Source: English Wiktionary and French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026).
How common is démêlé in French?
démêlé appears about once in every 5 million words in written French.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).