difficult
\ˈdɪf.ɪ.kəlt\
The verdict
“difficult” is uncommon French (frequency #70,532 among 5,307 “D” headwords), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #70,532
- frequency rank, French
- 5,307
- “D” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Difficile.
Corpus desk
Index FR-difficult · difficult · French
difficult · rank #70,532 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #70,532
- LEN-LONG 9 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 5,307
- PHOTO-FINISH diligente
Nearest frequency peer: diligente (+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.
Frequency neighbourhood for “difficult”
Lower corpus rank = more everyday usage (inverted bar length for readability)
- dessinais
dessinais
29,473 corpus weight
- destinent
destinent
29,472 corpus weight
- deviennes
deviennes
29,471 corpus weight
- difficult
difficult
29,469 corpus weight
- diligente
diligente
29,468 corpus weight
- dilués
dilués
29,467 corpus weight
What this shows Bars show where “difficult” sits against the nearest ranked French headwords in the FrequencyWords band, not a reprint of letter-browse containment.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | difficult |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | \ˈdɪf.ɪ.kəlt\ |
| Letters | 9 |
| Frequency rank | #70,532 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Où “difficult” se place dans la fréquence du français
Rare enough to double-check
difficult is uncommon French at frequency #70,532 among 5,307 “D” headwords, classed as anadjective, transcribed \ˈdɪf.ɪ.kəlt\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Difficile.".
Zero misspellings are on record for difficult in our index, a sign its spelling follows regular French conventions. We don't track a confusable pairing for this entry, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.
No documented word history exists for this headword, so its spelling is best read as a straightforward mapping from sound to letter. The correct French form is difficult, spelled D-I-F-F-I-C-U-L-T.
Definition
- 1Difficile.
Antonyms
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
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Similar French words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "difficult", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked French headwords with 9 letters (nearest by frequency rank).
What to do next
You've looked up "difficult". Here's where to go from here.
- Usage frequency rank #70,532 among French headwords in this corpus. Corpus statistics
- Browse more French words in the "D" letter cohort. D–Z browse
PlainSpell is a reference corpus, not spelling advice. Verify unusual forms in context.
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.