écu
\e.ky\
The verdict
“écu” is a moderately-common French word, ranked #28,025 in French word frequency and used as a noun.
- #28,025
- frequency rank, French
- 3
- letters
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Bouclier que portaient autrefois les chevaliers.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | écu |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \e.ky\ |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #28,025 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “écu” sits in French frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The French entry for écu is 3 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \e.ky\. Corpus data places it at rank #28,025 in overall French word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. Wiktionary records 9 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
No generated misspelling entries exist for écu in our index, a sign its spelling follows regular French conventions. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "et", "en", "Eu", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
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 écu, spelled É-C-U.
Definition
- 1Bouclier que portaient autrefois les chevaliers.
- 2Figure en forme d'écu stylisé sur lequel on pose les pièces honorables, les partitions, les meubles d’armoiries.
- 3Monnaie d’or ou d’argent frappée aux armes du souverain qui l’émettait.
- 4Ancienne monnaie de compte populaire.
- 5Appellation populaire des pièces de cinq francs frappées jusqu'en 1878.
- 6Marque quelconque en forme de blason.
- 7Richesse.
- 8Format français de papier défini par l'AFNOR avec les dimensions suivantes : 40 × 52 cm.
- 9Acronyme de l’anglais European Currency Unit (Unité de Compte Européenne ou UCE, en français) et qui servit de référence monétaire avant l’introduction de l’euro. Son symbole est ₠, ECU.
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
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Using “écu”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct French spelling is É-C-U - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as \e.ky\ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “et” - see the side-by-side comparison. écu vs et
- 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.