diaphane

\dja.fan\

/\dja.fan\/ adj

The verdict

“diaphane” is uncommon French (frequency #73,074 among 5,307 “D” headwords), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

#73,074
frequency rank, French
5,307
“D” headwords

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Qui laisse passer à travers soi les rayons lumineux.

Corpus desk

Index FR-diaphane · diaphane · French

diaphane · rank #73,074 · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-RARE #73,074
  • LEN-LONG 8 letters
  • VOW-4 4 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-DENSE 5,307
  • PHOTO-FINISH diaconat

Nearest frequency peer: diaconat (-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 « diaphane »

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

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026
Key facts for diaphane
PropertyValue
Headworddiaphane
LanguageFrench
Part of speechAdjective
IPA\dja.fan\
Letters8
Frequency rank#73,074
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Longue queue: rang de « diaphane » en français

Cette échelle va du noyau du français courant (gauche) jusqu'à la traîne des formes rares (droite).diaphanetombe 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: « diaconat » (#73,073), « dictatoriaux » (#73,075), « différait » (#73,076). Parmi 5,307 lemmes en « D », « diaphane » est au #73,074. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

diaphane is uncommon French at frequency #73,074 among 5,307 “D” headwords, classed as anadjective, transcribed \dja.fan\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 4 senses are on record.

diaphane doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, a sign its spelling follows regular French conventions. We don't track a confusable pairing for this entry, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.

This headword's origin isn't recorded in our source data, so its spelling is best explained by sound-to-letter mapping rather than etymology. The correct French form is diaphane, spelled D-I-A-P-H-A-N-E.

Definition

  1. 1
    Qui laisse passer à travers soi les rayons lumineux.
  2. 2
    Qui laisse passer la lumière sans que les objets soient discernables.
  3. 3
    Transparent.
  4. 4
    D’apparence fragile et délicat en parlant du physique d'une personne.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

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

  1. L’air est plus diaphane que l’eau.
  2. Aucune falaise, […], n’aurait pu donner une idée de cette banquise, opaque en un endroit, diaphane en un autre, et sur laquelle la lumière et l’ombre produisaient les jeux les plus étonnants.

Synonyms

Antonyms

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 "diaphane"?
"diaphane" is spelled D-I-A-P-H-A-N-E. The IPA pronunciation is \dja.fan\.
What does "diaphane" mean?
As an adjective, "diaphane" means: Qui laisse passer à travers soi les rayons lumineux.
How do you pronounce "diaphane"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "diaphane" is \dja.fan\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "diaphane" come from?
"diaphane" is a French word. PlainSpell's reference spans five languages -- English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German -- with definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for each.
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 "diaphane", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked French headwords with 8 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list