diabolo

\dja.bɔ.lo\

/\dja.bɔ.lo\/ noun

The verdict

“diabolo” is uncommon French (frequency #53,893 among 5,307 “D” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

#53,893
frequency rank, French
5,307
“D” headwords

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Instrument de jonglerie ressemblant à deux cônes reliés à leur extrémité la plus fine par un axe.

Corpus desk

Index FR-diabolo · diabolo · French

diabolo · rank #53,893 · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-RARE #53,893
  • LEN-LONG 7 letters
  • VOW-4 4 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-DENSE 5,307
  • PHOTO-FINISH Demba

Nearest frequency peer: Demba (-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 « diabolo »

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 « diabolo » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026
Key facts for diabolo
PropertyValue
Headworddiabolo
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\dja.bɔ.lo\
Letters7
Frequency rank#53,893
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Longue queue: rang de « diabolo » en français

La fréquence va de la poignée de mots du quotidien (gauche) à la longue queue presque jamais vue (droite).diabolotombe dans cette queue de rareté:

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

L'échelle est logarithmique (chaque tic ≈ 10× plus rare). Voisins rares de la même bande: « Demba » (#53,892), « diminutions » (#53,894), « dip » (#53,895). Parmi 5,307 lemmes en « D », « diabolo » est au #53,893. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

diabolo is uncommon French at frequency #53,893 among 5,307 “D” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed \dja.bɔ.lo\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 5 senses are on record.

We couldn't generate a plausible misspelling set for diabolo, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. This entry stands alone in our confusable dataset, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.

Our source data has no etymology on file for this entry, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. The correct French form is diabolo, spelled D-I-A-B-O-L-O.

Definition

  1. 1
    Instrument de jonglerie ressemblant à deux cônes reliés à leur extrémité la plus fine par un axe.
  2. 2
    Boisson à base de sirop additionné de limonade.
  3. 3
    En ORL, aérateur trans-tympanique, ou yoyo.
  4. 4
    Petite balle de plomb utilisée dans les pistolets ou fusils à air comprimé.
  5. 5
    Pièce fixée de chaque coté du bras oscillant, permettant de soulever, à l’aide d’une béquille spéciale, et de la maintenir surélevée et stable, la partie arrière de la moto, pour des opérations de maintenance.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

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

  1. Le jongleur tient deux baguettes reliées par une ficelle sur laquelle roule le diabolo.
  2. A propos de Bertin, le Secrétaire Général dit que le Journal des Débats, du 29 juin, lui attribue l’introduction en France, vers 1776, d’un jeu qui a en ce moment à Paris une grande vogue, le diabolo auquel on joue dans tous les jardins publics.

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 "diabolo"?
"diabolo" is spelled D-I-A-B-O-L-O. The IPA pronunciation is \dja.bɔ.lo\.
What does "diabolo" mean?
As a noun, "diabolo" means: Instrument de jonglerie ressemblant à deux cônes reliés à leur extrémité la plus fine par un axe.
How do you pronounce "diabolo"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "diabolo" is \dja.bɔ.lo\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "diabolo" come from?
"diabolo" 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 "diabolo", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked French headwords with 7 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list