détonner
French, verb/de.tɔ.ne/
détonner is spelled D-É-T-O-N-N-E-R (8 letters) and appears about once in every 11 million words in written French, the 107,057th most frequent French word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). Détonner is a French verb meaning “to sing out of tune” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) defines it as “Sortir du ton qu’on doit garder pour chanter juste”.
What does détonner mean in English?
verb
- 1
to sing out of tune
- 2
to stick out, to stick out like a sore thumb
Source: English Wiktionary, French section, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0).
How French dictionaries define it
verb: 1. Sortir du ton qu’on doit garder pour chanter juste. 2. Contenir des choses qui ne sont pas dans le ton général, en parlant des choses ou des personnes.
verb: 1. Variante de détoner (rare et par jeu littéraire).
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 détonner
- avoir + past participle infinitive multiword-construction
- détonnant gerund participle present
- ayant + past participle gerund multiword-construction participle
- détonné participle past
- détonne first-person indicative present
- détonnes indicative present second-person
- détonnons first-person indicative plural
- détonnez indicative plural present
- détonnent indicative plural present
- détonnais first-person imperfect indicative
- détonnait imperfect indicative singular
- détonnions first-person imperfect indicative
- détonniez imperfect indicative plural
- détonnaient imperfect indicative plural
- détonnai first-person historic indicative
- détonnas historic indicative past
- détonna historic indicative past
- détonnâmes first-person historic indicative
Source: English Wiktionary and French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026).
How do you pronounce détonner?
- /de.tɔ.ne/
- \de.tɔ.ne\
Sources: English Wiktionary, French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026); recordings from Wikimedia Commons.
How common is détonner in French?
détonner appears about once in every 11 million words in written French.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).