eau douce
\o dus\
The verdict
“eau douce” is uncommon French (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency French
- 9
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Eau non salée, de lacs et de cours d’eau.
Corpus desk
Index FR-eau-douce · eau douce · French
eau douce · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-LONG 9 letters
- VOW-6 6 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "E" 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 | eau douce |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \o dus\ |
| Letters | 9 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « eau douce » en français
Rare enough to double-check
eau douce is uncommon French outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun, transcribed \o dus\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 3 senses are on record.
Zero misspellings are on record for eau douce in our index, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, suggesting its spelling stands apart enough that readers rarely confuse it with something else.
This headword's origin isn't recorded in our source data, so its spelling pattern is best understood through pronunciation rather than a traceable origin. The correct French form is eau douce, spelled E-A-U- -D-O-U-C-E.
Definition
- 1Eau non salée, de lacs et de cours d’eau.
- 2Ensemble des lacs, étangs, ruisseaux, fleuves, qui contiennent cette eau.
- 3Eau contenant peu d’ions calcium et magnésium, en particulier dont le titre hydrotimétrique est compris entre 10 et 20°f.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how eau douce appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
[…], j’apprenais à goûter l’exquise saveur des chevrettes d’eau douce enveloppées dans des feuilles d’hibiscus et rôties sur des pierres rougies au feu, un mets digne des dieux.
De l’œuf sort une larve nageante, le miracidium, qui pénètre dans un mollusque gastéropode d’eau douce.
This word in other languages
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.