eh bien
\e bjɛ̃\
The verdict
“eh bien” is uncommon French (outside the top frequency list), classed as an interjection. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency French
- 7
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Renforcement expressif du ressenti pour marquer la surprise.
Corpus desk
Index FR-eh-bien · eh bien · French
eh bien · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-LONG 7 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "E" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
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.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | eh bien |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Interjection |
| IPA | \e bjɛ̃\ |
| Letters | 7 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « eh bien » en français
Rare enough to double-check
eh bien is uncommon French outside the top frequency list, classed as aninterjection, transcribed \e bjɛ̃\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 6 senses are on record.
Zero misspellings are on record for eh bien in our index, suggesting the orthography follows predictable French patterns. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, suggesting its spelling stands apart enough that readers rarely confuse it with something else.
This headword's origin isn't recorded in our source data, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. The correct French form is eh bien, spelled E-H- -B-I-E-N.
Definition
- 1Renforcement expressif du ressenti pour marquer la surprise.
- 2Renforcement expressif du ressenti pour marquer l’admiration.
- 3Renforcement expressif du ressenti pour marquer l’interrogation.
- 4Renforcement expressif du ressenti pour marquer l’irritation.
- 5Renforcement expressif du ressenti pour marquer l’ironie, en feignant un ressenti, un sentiment.
- 6Explétif, avant des mots courts mais importants, ou pour gagner du temps lorsque l’on ne sait pas ce que l’on va dire.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how eh bien appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Caroline aura peut-être un moment d’estomaquement ! Elle dira peut-être : « Eh bien !… Eh ben ! quoi donc ? » Mais elle aura du moins l’attrait de la surprise et l’effet n’aura pas été raté.
« Eh bien, dis donc, tu ne te refuses rien ! »
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.