écu

\e.ky\

/\e.ky\/ noun

By · According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA) ·

The verdict

“écu” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #28,025) as a noun. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.

#28,025
frequency rank, French
1,805
“É” headwords
20
confusable pairs

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Bouclier que portaient autrefois les chevaliers.

Corpus desk

Index FR-ecu · écu · French

écu · rank #28,025 · 0 variants · 20 confusables

  • FREQ-MID #28,025
  • LEN-MID 3 letters
  • VOW-2 2 vowels
  • CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-MID 1,805
  • PHOTO-FINISH écrin

Nearest frequency peer: écrin (-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.

Voisins de fréquence du confusable « écu »

Pairs de poids proche dans le corpus, séparés des confusables ci-dessous

corpus weight

What this shows Les barres placent « écu » face aux lemmes français les plus proches par rang, pas un reprint du bureau des confusables.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026

Visual similarity to commonly confused words

How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).

écu vs et
0% similar
écu vs en
0% similar
écu vs Eu
33% similar

Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).

Key facts for écu
PropertyValue
Headwordécu
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\e.ky\
Letters3
Frequency rank#28,025
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs20
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Rang de corpus près des confusables de « écu »

De gauche à droite: le peu qui porte la parole quotidienne, puis la longue queue quasi invisible.écuse place ici:

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

Les tics avancent en logarithme; chacun est de l'ordre de dix fois plus rare. Dans la même bande de rareté figurent « écrin » (#28,024), « égaliser » (#28,026), « won » (#28,023). Parmi 1,805 lemmes en « É », « écu » est au #28,025. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Easy to mix with look-alikes

The spelling risk for écu is neighbouring look-alikes ("et", "en", …), not just typos; it is anoun pronounced \e.ky\. Frequency #28,025 among 1,805 “É” headwords. 9 recorded senses keep meaning in play.

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

  1. 1
    Bouclier que portaient autrefois les chevaliers.
  2. 2
    Figure en forme d'écu stylisé sur lequel on pose les pièces honorables, les partitions, les meubles d’armoiries.
  3. 3
    Monnaie d’or ou d’argent frappée aux armes du souverain qui l’émettait.
  4. 4
    Ancienne monnaie de compte populaire.
  5. 5
    Appellation populaire des pièces de cinq francs frappées jusqu'en 1878.
  6. 6
    Marque quelconque en forme de blason.
  7. 7
    Richesse.
  8. 8
    Format français de papier défini par l'AFNOR avec les dimensions suivantes : 40 × 52 cm.
  9. 9
    Acronyme 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.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

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

  1. Le chevalier se couvrit la tête de son casque, passa son écu au bras gauche, sauta sur le rivage, tira son cheval après lui, s’élança en selle
  2. L’écu de France.

This word in other languages

shield(English)escudo(Español)Schild(Deutsch)escudo(Português)

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 "écu"?
"écu" is spelled É-C-U. The IPA pronunciation is \e.ky\.
What does "écu" mean?
As a noun, "écu" means: Bouclier que portaient autrefois les chevaliers.
What words are commonly confused with "écu"?
"écu" is commonly confused with "et", "en", "Eu". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "écu"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "écu" is \e.ky\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "écu" come from?
"écu" is a French word. PlainSpell covers definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German.
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 "écu", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked French headwords with 3 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

won#28,023tsé#28,002aya#28,065bee#28,072

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list