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e

French, letter

e is spelled E (one letter) and appears 195 times per million words in written French, the 416th most frequent French word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). E is a French letter meaning “The fifth letter of the French alphabet, written in the Latin script” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). With a diaeresis, ë is a different word: “the letter “e” in words when it must be pronounced separately and not…”. With an accent, è is a different word: “she's, it's: contraction of elle + est”. On this page, Ë is a different word: “the letter “E” in words when it must be pronounced separately and not…”. The French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) defines it as “Cinquième lettre et seconde voyelle de l’alphabet (minuscule)”.

What does e mean in English?

letter

  1. 1

    The fifth letter of the French alphabet, written in the Latin script.

letter

as ë
  1. 1

    the letter “e” in words when it must be pronounced separately and not associated with preceding letter. E.g. “-gue” is normally pronounced /ɡ/ but “-guë” is pronounce /ɡy/ (as in aiguë, ciguë); “œ” is normally pronounced /e/ or /ɛ/ but “oë” is pronounced /o.ɛ/ (like in troëne, Noël)

suffix

as -é
  1. 1

    masculine-ate, -y, -dom, -ship

suffix

as -é
  1. 1

    masculineforms the noun denoting the result, product, object, or effect of the action expressed by a verb

phrase

as è
  1. 1

    Quebecshe's, it's: contraction of elle + est

letter

as Ë
  1. 1

    the letter “E” in words when it must be pronounced separately and not associated with preceding letter. E.g. “-gue” is normally pronounced /ɡ/ but “-guë” is pronounce /ɡy/ (like in aiguë, ciguë); “œ” is normally pronounced /e/ or /ɛ/ but “oë” is pronounced /o.ɛ/ (like in troëne, Noël)

suffix

as -e
  1. 1

    feminineforms the feminine of nouns referring to people

suffix

as -e
  1. 1

    feminineforms the feminine singular of adjectives

suffix

as -e
  1. 1

    abbreviation of -ième when an ordinal number is written with Arabic or Roman numerals

adjective

as E
  1. 1

    abbreviation of est; east

noun

as E
  1. 1

    masculineabbreviation of est; east

letter

as E
  1. 1

    The fifth letter of the French alphabet, written in the Latin script.

letter

as ê
  1. 1

    the letter e with circumflex, used to indicate historical deletion of an adjacent ⟨s⟩. For example: fête, formerly feste.

prefix

as é-
  1. 1

    prefix indicating away, moving away from; sometimes used as an intensifier, for example in écru

letter

as Ê
  1. 1

    the letter E with circumflex, used to indicate historical deletion of an adjacent ⟨s⟩. For example: fête, formerly feste.

suffix

as -é
  1. 1

    past participle root verb suffix of regular -er verbs, an inflected infinitive verb; -ed, -en, -n

suffix

as -é
  1. 1

    inflection of -er

  2. 2

    presubject first-person singular present indicative

  3. 3

    presubject first-person singular present subjunctive

suffix

as -e
  1. 1

    first-person singular present indicative

  2. 2

    first-person singular present subjunctive

  3. 3

    third-person singular present indicative

  4. 4

    third-person singular present subjunctive

  5. 5

    first-person singular present subjunctive

  6. 6

    third-person singular present subjunctive

suffix

as -e
  1. 1

    second-person singular imperative of -er

suffix

as -è
  1. 1

    inflection of -er

  2. 2

    presubject first-person singular present indicative

  3. 3

    presubject first-person singular present subjunctive

Source: English Wiktionary, French section, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0).

How French dictionaries define it

letter: 1. Cinquième lettre de l’alphabet, seconde voyelle (majuscule).

symbol: 1. Abréviation courante du point cardinal est.

noun: 1. Horizon éluvial, appauvri en argile.

noun: 1. Hormone œstrogène.

letter: 1. E accent grave (minuscule).

pronoun: 1. Contraction du pronom personnel elle ou elles dans le langage parlé. Cette forme retranscrit la prononciation courante qui a tendance à effacer le L de elle et elles.

suffix: 1. Marqueur du féminin de nom ou d’adjectif.

suffix: 1. Suffixe utilisé en général en complément du suffixe -yl pour indiquer que l’on parle d’un groupement isolé. Par exemple : acétyl fait référence au groupement CH₃-CO- à l’intérieur d’une molécule, alors que acétyle fait référence au même groupement, mais considéré isolément.

letter: 1. e accent aigu.

pronoun: 1. Variante de elle.

noun: 1. Trentième lettre de l’alphabet cyrillique, э.

letter: 1. E accent circonflexe.

prefix: 1. Préfixe qui marque l’action de séparer, retirer, ou de déplacer en dehors.

prefix: 1. Lié à l’électronique et en particulier à Internet.

noun: 1. Abréviation d'électron.

letter: 1. E tréma minuscule.

suffix: 1. Suffixe servant à construire le participe passé des verbes du premier groupe par substitution au suffixe infinitif -er. 2. Pour former des adjectifs. 3. Le participe passé peut s'adjectiver. 4. Le participe passé sert de base à des dérivés par préfixation.

letter: 1. E tréma (majuscule).

letter: 1. E accent grave (majuscule).

letter: 1. E accent aigu (majuscule).

letter: 1. E accent circonflexe (majuscule).

letter: 1. Cinquième lettre et seconde voyelle de l’alphabet (minuscule).

noun: 1. Désigne la base du logarithme naturel, constante mathématique transcendante aussi appelée nombre d’Euler. 2,718281828459045… Note d’usage : la typographie des constantes mathématiques requiert l’utilisation de la police romaine en minuscule droite : “e”, pour réserver l’italique aux variables. Et le symbole en physique de la charge élémentaire s'écrit alors 𝒆, toujours en italique, en tant que sym

noun: 1. Langue métisse parlée dans une partie de Rongshui et de Luocheng dans la province du Guangxi en Chine, qui avait trente-mille locuteurs recensés en 1992, et dont le code ISO 639-3 est eee.

noun: 1. Est.

suffix: 1. Marqueur de neutre.

suffix: 1. Permet de ne pas spécifier le genre de la personne.

The definition in the French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire), in French.

Source: French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire), dump of September 1, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org.

Forms of e

  • E uppercase
  • Ë uppercase
  • ë lowercase
  • e lowercase
  • Ê uppercase
  • ê lowercase
  • a
  • è z’ familiar
  • y
  • ·es plural
  • ·e·s plural
  • .e
  • /e
  • ·e

Source: English Wiktionary and French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026).

English words that translate to e

Source: the translation tables of the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026.

How common is e in French?

e appears 195 times per million words in written French.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

What to look up after e