en difficulté
\ɑ̃ di.fi.kyl.te\
The verdict
“en difficulté” is uncommon French (outside the top frequency list), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency French
- 13
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Qui est dans une situation difficile, voire périlleuse.
Corpus desk
Index FR-en-difficulte · en difficulté · French
en difficulté · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 13 letters
- VOW-5 5 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 | en difficulté |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | \ɑ̃ di.fi.kyl.te\ |
| Letters | 13 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « en difficulté » en français
Rare enough to double-check
en difficulté is uncommon French outside the top frequency list, classed as anadjective, transcribed \ɑ̃ di.fi.kyl.te\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Qui est dans une situation difficile, voire périlleuse.".
Zero misspellings are on record for en difficulté in our index, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. This entry stands alone in our confusable dataset, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.
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 en difficulté, spelled E-N- -D-I-F-F-I-C-U-L-T-É.
Definition
- 1Qui est dans une situation difficile, voire périlleuse.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how en difficulté appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Mais il a aussi la propriété de diminuer le mouvement des vagues à la surface, ce qui explique l’apaisement des flots dans cette zone qui est une aire de repos pour les bateaux en difficulté.
Un guide ne peut constamment abandonner sa clientèle pour se porter à l’aide d’alpinistes en difficulté s’il doit le faire bénévolement. On comprend très bien qu’il soit rémunéré, ce n’est que justice.
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.