drain

/\dʁɛ̃\/ noun

Letters

5 characters

Frequency Rank

#33,222

in French word usage

Misspellings

6

tracked variants

Confusables

20

similar word pairs

drain is aFrenchnoun. It means: Une des trois électrodes d’un transistor à effet de champ (les deux autres sont appelées source et grille). Il joue un rôle analogue à l’anode dans les tubes à vide, ou le collecteur dans les trans... Pronounced \dʁɛ̃\. Often confused with drap and dray.

Key facts for drain
PropertyValue
Headworddrain
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\dʁɛ̃\
Letters5
Frequency rank#33,222
Misspellings tracked6
Confusable pairs20
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Frequency rank visualization

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

Source: Wordfreq corpus

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

The French entry for drain is 5 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \dʁɛ̃\. Corpus data places it at rank #33,222 in overall French word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it.Wiktionary records 4 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.

Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 6 documented wrong-spelling variants for drain, with forms such as "darin", "ddrain", and "drainn". 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 20 confusable-pair relationships, "drap", "dray", "droit", 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 drain, spelled D-R-A-I-N, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.

Definition

  1. 1
    Une des trois électrodes d’un transistor à effet de champ (les deux autres sont appelées source et grille). Il joue un rôle analogue à l’anode dans les tubes à vide, ou le collecteur dans les transistors bipolaires.
  2. 2
    Fossé souterrain qui sert à faire écouler l’eau dans les terres trop humides.
  3. 3
    Il se dit aussi d’un tuyau poreux qui sert au même usage.
  4. 4
    Mèche ou tube percé de trous adapté dans une plaie après une opération chirurgicale afin d’en extraire les fluides viciés pour faciliter l’écoulement du pus d’un foyer infectieux ou, en l’absence d’infection, du sang et de la lymphe qui risqueraient de s’accumuler lors de la cicatrisation et de provoquer un hématome.

This word in other languages

Common misspellings

Also misspelled as: darin,ddrain,drainn,drani,drian,drrain

Misspelling Pattern Breakdown

Relative frequency of common misspelling types for drain

Misspelling Variants of "drain"

darin5ddrain6drainn6drani5drian5drrain6
Misspelling Variants of "drain"

Frequency rank: #33,222 in French

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "drain"?
"drain" is spelled D-R-A-I-N. The IPA pronunciation is \dʁɛ̃\.
What does "drain" mean?
As a noun, "drain" means: Une des trois électrodes d’un transistor à effet de champ (les deux autres sont appelées source et grille). Il joue un rôle analogue à l’anode dans les tubes à vide, ou le collecteur dans les trans...
What words are commonly confused with "drain"?
"drain" is commonly confused with "drap", "dray", "droit". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "drain"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "drain" is \dʁɛ̃\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "drain" come from?
"drain" 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:

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