dürfen
\ˈdʏʁ.fən\
The verdict
“dürfen” is uncommon French (outside the top frequency list), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency French
- 6
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - (l’infinitif remplace le participe passé) Pouvoir (légalement), avoir le droit.
Corpus desk
Index FR-durfen · dürfen · French
dürfen · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-LONG 6 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "D" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
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.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | dürfen |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | \ˈdʏʁ.fən\ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « dürfen » en français
Rare enough to double-check
dürfen is uncommon French outside the top frequency list, classed as averb, transcribed \ˈdʏʁ.fən\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 5 senses are on record.
We couldn't generate a plausible misspelling set for dürfen, typically a sign the spelling maps closely to how the word sounds. No confusable counterpart is on file for this word, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.
Wiktionary doesn't record an etymology for this headword, so any spelling logic here comes from how the word's sounds map to letters, not a documented origin story. The correct French form is dürfen, spelled D-Ü-R-F-E-N.
Definition
- 1(l’infinitif remplace le participe passé) Pouvoir (légalement), avoir le droit.
- 2Pouvoir (légalement), avoir le droit.
- 3Pouvoir, être permis, avoir permission.
- 4(modalité, au subjonctif passé (subjonctif II) : dürfte) Se pouvoir ; exprime la probabilité.
- 5Pouvoir se permettre.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how dürfen appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Darf ich gehen?
Ich habe gehen dürfen.
Synonyms
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.