écartelé
French, adjective
écartelé is spelled É-C-A-R-T-E-L-É (8 letters) and appears about once in every 2 million words in written French, the 48,990th most frequent French word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). Écartelé is a French adjective meaning “quarterly; per cross” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is also a past participle of écarteler. With an accent, écartèle is a different word: “first/third-person singular present indicative/subjunctive”. The French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) defines it as “Déchiré en quatre quartiers”.
What does écartelé mean in English?
adjective
- 1
quarterly; per cross
verb
- 1
past participle of écarteler
verb
- 1
first/third-person singular present indicative/subjunctive
- 2
second-person singular imperative
Source: English Wiktionary, French section, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0).
How French dictionaries define it
adjective: 1. Déchiré en quatre quartiers. 2. Aplati, avec les quatre membres écartés. 3. Se dit de l’écu ou d'une subdivision qui est partagé(e) en quatre zones (appelées écarts, écartelures ou quartiers) à la suite de l’application d’un coupé et d’un parti. Il y a donc constitution de 4 champs indépendants numérotés de 1 à 4 dans le sens de lecture occidental (de dextre à senestre et de chef en pointe).
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 écartelé
- écartelée feminine
- écartelés masculine plural
- écartelées feminine plural
Source: English Wiktionary and French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026).
English words that translate to écartelé
Source: the translation tables of the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026.
How common is écartelé in French?
écartelé appears about once in every 2 million words in written French.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).