drain
\dʁɛ̃\
The verdict
“drain” is a moderately-common French word, ranked #33,222 in French word frequency and used as a noun.
- #33,222
- frequency rank, French
- 5
- letters
- 6
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - 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...
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | drain |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \dʁɛ̃\ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #33,222 |
| Misspellings tracked | 6 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “drain” sits in French frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The French entry for drain is 5 letters long, classified as a noun, 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 generated misspelling index lists 6 likely wrong-spelling variants for drain, with forms such as "darin", "ddrain", and "drainn". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. 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.
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 drain, spelled D-R-A-I-N.
Definition
- 1Une 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.
- 2Fossé souterrain qui sert à faire écouler l’eau dans les terres trop humides.
- 3Il se dit aussi d’un tuyau poreux qui sert au même usage.
- 4Mèche 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
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of drain - expressed in single-character edits (insert, delete, or swap one letter). Bigger bars stand out at a glance; a one-edit slip is the hardest to catch.
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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Using “drain”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct French spelling is D-R-A-I-N - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as \dʁɛ̃\ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “drap” - see the side-by-side comparison. drain vs drap
- Browse more French words and confusable pairs in the same reference. French words
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.