écoutille

\e.ku.tij\

/\e.ku.tij\/ noun

The verdict

“écoutille” is uncommon French (frequency #78,074 among 1,805 “É” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

#78,074
frequency rank, French
1,805
“É” headwords

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Sorte de trappe, ouverture carrée ou rectangulaire pratiquée dans le pont d’un navire pour descendre dans l’intérieur.

Corpus desk

Index FR-ecoutille · écoutille · French

écoutille · rank #78,074 · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-RARE #78,074
  • LEN-LONG 9 letters
  • VOW-5 5 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-MID 1,805
  • PHOTO-FINISH échouées

Nearest frequency peer: échouées (-1 rank slots)

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.

Rangs de longue queue près de « écoutille »

Bande clairsemée: les barres inversent le rang pour que le rare se lise plus court

corpus weight

What this shows Vue de longue queue: où « écoutille » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026
Key facts for écoutille
PropertyValue
Headwordécoutille
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\e.ku.tij\
Letters9
Frequency rank#78,074
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Longue queue: rang de « écoutille » en français

De gauche à droite: le peu qui porte la parole quotidienne, puis la longue queue quasi invisible.écoutilletombe dans cette queue de rareté:

#1#100#1K#10K#100K
← used constantlyrarely used →

L'axe est logarithmique: chaque tic marque environ dix fois moins de fréquence. Voisins rares de la même bande: « échouées » (#78,073), « échauffés » (#78,072), « émoussée » (#78,076). Parmi 1,805 lemmes en « É », « écoutille » est au #78,074. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

écoutille is uncommon French at frequency #78,074 among 1,805 “É” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed \e.ku.tij\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.

Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for écoutille, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, since its spelling is unusual enough that it doesn't cluster with a lookalike.

This entry's etymology isn't recorded, so its spelling is easiest to reason about phoneme by phoneme, absent a documented history. The correct French form is écoutille, spelled É-C-O-U-T-I-L-L-E.

Definition

  1. 1
    Sorte de trappe, ouverture carrée ou rectangulaire pratiquée dans le pont d’un navire pour descendre dans l’intérieur.
  2. 2
    Oreille.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

These source excerpts show how écoutille appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. Les hommes descendaient, bouchaient tour à tour l’écoutille, se laissaient glisser le long de l’échelle de fer et avec eux de l’eau saumâtre dégringolait, se formait en rigole sur le plancher. Il y avait toujours aussi une voix pour crier : — L’écoutille, nom de D… !
  2. Du bout de son fouet il montra à Léda l’écoutille ouverte que deux soldats, tenant un lourd gourdin, gardaient.

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); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 French corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "écoutille"?
"écoutille" is spelled É-C-O-U-T-I-L-L-E. The IPA pronunciation is \e.ku.tij\.
What does "écoutille" mean?
As a noun, "écoutille" means: Sorte de trappe, ouverture carrée ou rectangulaire pratiquée dans le pont d’un navire pour descendre dans l’intérieur.
How do you pronounce "écoutille"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "écoutille" is \e.ku.tij\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "écoutille" come from?
"écoutille" is a French word. PlainSpell's reference spans five languages -- English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German -- with definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for each.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Similar French words by spelling shape

Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "écoutille", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked French headwords with 9 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list