elf
\ɛlf\
The verdict
“elf” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #39,277) as an adjective. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.
- #39,277
- frequency rank, French
- 3,255
- “E” headwords
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Onze.
Corpus desk
Index FR-elf · elf · French
elf · rank #39,277 · 0 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-MID #39,277
- LEN-MID 3 letters
- VOW-1 1 vowel
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 3,255
- PHOTO-FINISH détectées
Nearest frequency peer: détectées (-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 « elf »
Pairs de poids proche dans le corpus, séparés des confusables ci-dessous
- dérivent
dérivent
60,727 corpus weight
- désillusions
désillusions
60,726 corpus weight
- détectées
détectées
60,725 corpus weight
- elf
elf
60,724 corpus weight
- emballement
emballement
60,722 corpus weight
- emo
emo
60,721 corpus weight
What this shows Les barres placent « elf » face aux lemmes français les plus proches par rang, pas un reprint du bureau des confusables.
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 | elf |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | \ɛlf\ |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #39,277 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Rang de corpus près des confusables de « elf »
Easy to mix with look-alikes
The spelling risk for elf is neighbouring look-alikes ("et", "en", …), not just typos; it is anadjective pronounced \ɛlf\. Frequency #39,277 among 3,255 “E” headwords. Gloss: "Onze.".
No misspelling variants are generated for elf in our index, suggesting the orthography follows predictable French patterns. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "et", "en", "Eu", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
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 elf, spelled E-L-F.
Definition
- 1Onze.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how elf appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Das Wort „elfengleich“ hat elf Buchstaben.
Mein Weihnachtsfest 1999 war missraten; ich versuchte, ins Internet reinzukommen, schaffte es aber nicht. Ich war gerade umgezogen; wahrscheinlich hätte ich die Modemkarte reinstallieren lassen müssen oder so was in der Art. Die fruchtlosen Bemühungen ermüdeten mich schnell, gegen elf Uhr schlief ich ein.
Synonyms
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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Similar French words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "elf", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked French headwords with 3 letters (nearest by frequency rank).