école maternelle
\e.kɔl ma.tɛʁ.nɛl\
The verdict
“école maternelle” is outside the top-ranked French vocabulary, used as a noun - the kind of word writers most often double-check.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency French
- 16
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Partie de la scolarité concernant les enfants de moins de six ans, avant le cours préparatoire de l’école élémentaire.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | école maternelle |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \e.kɔl ma.tɛʁ.nɛl\ |
| Letters | 16 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “école maternelle” sits in French frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The French entry for école maternelle is 16 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \e.kɔl ma.tɛʁ.nɛl\. It sits outside the most-frequent rank tiers, which is often why uncommon words generate more spelling variants per reader. Wiktionary records 2 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
école maternelle has no tracked misspelling variants, a straightforward case of a spelling with little room for common typos. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, suggesting its spelling stands apart enough that readers rarely confuse it with something else.
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 école maternelle, spelled É-C-O-L-E- -M-A-T-E-R-N-E-L-L-E.
Definition
- 1Partie de la scolarité concernant les enfants de moins de six ans, avant le cours préparatoire de l’école élémentaire.
- 2Établissement scolaire destiné à ces enfants.
Synonyms
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.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you spell "école maternelle"?
What does "école maternelle" mean?
How do you pronounce "école maternelle"?
What language does "école maternelle" come from?
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Using “école maternelle”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct French spelling is É-C-O-L-E- -M-A-T-E-R-N-E-L-L-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as \e.kɔl ma.tɛʁ.nɛl\ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- 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.