désavouer

\de.za.vwe\

/\de.za.vwe\/ verb

The verdict

“désavouer” is uncommon French (frequency #57,899 among 5,307 “D” headwords), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

#57,899
frequency rank, French
5,307
“D” headwords

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Nier d’avoir dit ou fait quelque chose.

Corpus desk

Index FR-desavouer · désavouer · French

désavouer · rank #57,899 · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-RARE #57,899
  • LEN-LONG 9 letters
  • VOW-5 5 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-DENSE 5,307
  • PHOTO-FINISH dépensez

Nearest frequency peer: dépensez (-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 « désavouer »

Bande clairsemée: les barres inversent le rang pour que le rare se lise plus court

corpus weight

What this shows Vue de longue queue: où « désavouer » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026
Key facts for désavouer
PropertyValue
Headworddésavouer
LanguageFrench
Part of speechVerb
IPA\de.za.vwe\
Letters9
Frequency rank#57,899
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Longue queue: rang de « désavouer » en français

De gauche à droite: le peu qui porte la parole quotidienne, puis la longue queue quasi invisible.désavouertombe dans cette queue de rareté:

#1#100#1K#10K#100K
← used constantlyrarely used →

L'axe est logarithmique: chaque tic marque environ dix fois moins de fréquence. Voisins rares de la même bande: « dépensez » (#57,898), « déontologiques » (#57,897), « désintéressement » (#57,901). Parmi 5,307 lemmes en « D », « désavouer » est au #57,899. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

désavouer is uncommon French at frequency #57,899 among 5,307 “D” headwords, classed as averb, transcribed \de.za.vwe\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 5 senses are on record.

Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for désavouer, typically a sign the spelling maps closely to how the word sounds. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, which typically means the spelling is too distinctive to be mistaken for another word.

No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, so any spelling logic here comes from how the word's sounds map to letters, not a documented origin story. The correct French form is désavouer, spelled D-É-S-A-V-O-U-E-R.

Definition

  1. 1
    Nier d’avoir dit ou fait quelque chose.
  2. 2
    Ne vouloir pas reconnaître une chose, voire une personne, pour sienne.
  3. 3
    Rétracter.
  4. 4
    Déclarer qu’on n’avait pas autorisé quelqu’un à faire ou à dire ce qu’il a fait ou dit.
  5. 5
    Désapprouver, condamner, réprouver.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

These source excerpts show how désavouer appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. Vous l’avez dit, vous n’oseriez le désavouer.
  2. Je ne désavoue aucun de mes actes, aucune de mes paroles.

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

How do you spell "désavouer"?
"désavouer" is spelled D-É-S-A-V-O-U-E-R. The IPA pronunciation is \de.za.vwe\.
What does "désavouer" mean?
As a verb, "désavouer" means: Nier d’avoir dit ou fait quelque chose.
How do you pronounce "désavouer"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "désavouer" is \de.za.vwe\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "désavouer" come from?
"désavouer" is a French word. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for this and other words across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German on PlainSpell.
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.

Similar French words by spelling shape

Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "désavouer", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked French headwords with 9 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list