douceur

/\du.sœʁ\/ noun

Letters

7 characters

Frequency Rank

#4,143

in French word usage

Misspellings

9

tracked variants

Confusables

12

similar word pairs

douceur is aFrenchnoun. It means: Qualité de ce qui est doux ; la chose même qui a cette qualité. Pronounced \du.sœʁ\. It ranks #4,143 in French word frequency. Often confused with douter and douleur.

Key facts for douceur
PropertyValue
Headworddouceur
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\du.sœʁ\
Letters7
Frequency rank#4,143
Misspellings tracked9
Confusable pairs12
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Frequency rank visualization

Position of douceur in French word frequency (lower rank = more common)

Source: Wordfreq corpus

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

The French entry for douceur is 7 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \du.sœʁ\. Corpus data places it at rank #4,143 in overall French word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 8 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.

Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 9 documented wrong-spelling variants for douceur, with forms such as "ddouceur", "docueur", and "doucceur". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 12 confusable-pair relationships, "douter", "douleur", "douteux", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.

No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct French form is douceur, spelled D-O-U-C-E-U-R, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.

Definition

  1. 1
    Qualité de ce qui est doux ; la chose même qui a cette qualité.
  2. 2
    Friandises propres à flatter le goût, sucreries.
  3. 3
    Choses morales qui flattent l’âme, l’esprit, comme les substances douces flattent le goût.
  4. 4
    Façon d’agir douce et éloignée de toute sorte de violence, modération.
  5. 5
    Paroles aimables et particulièrement des compliments qu’un individu adresse à une autre personne pour tâcher de lui plaire, de s’en faire aimer.
  6. 6
    Température agréable, chaleur modérée.
  7. 7
    Dédommagement qu'on donne à quelqu'un pour reconnaître sa peine.
  8. 8
    Qualité d'un matériau à se déformer, à se fissurer sous une contrainte mécanique. (l'inverse se nomme ténacité)

This word in other languages

Common misspellings

Also misspelled as: ddouceur,docueur,doucceur,douceru,douceurr,doucuer,douecur,duoceur,oduceur

Misspelling Pattern Breakdown

Relative frequency of common misspelling types for douceur

Misspelling Variants of "douceur"

ddouceur8docueur7doucceur8douceru7douceurr8doucuer7douecur7duoceur7
Misspelling Variants of "douceur"

Frequency rank: #4,143 in French

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "douceur"?
"douceur" is spelled D-O-U-C-E-U-R. The IPA pronunciation is \du.sœʁ\.
What does "douceur" mean?
As a noun, "douceur" means: Qualité de ce qui est doux ; la chose même qui a cette qualité.
What words are commonly confused with "douceur"?
"douceur" is commonly confused with "douter", "douleur", "douteux". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "douceur"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "douceur" is \du.sœʁ\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "douceur" come from?
"douceur" is a French word. PlainSpell covers definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German.
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.

Nearby French words

Other entries that begin with the letter D in our French index:

Explore PlainSpell

Data Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Frequency data from Wordfreq. Misspellings derived from Hunspell dictionaries.