en premier lieu
\ɑ̃ pʁə.mje ljø\
The verdict
“en premier lieu” is outside the top-ranked French vocabulary, used as an adverb - the kind of word writers most often double-check.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency French
- 15
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Tout d’abord ; avant tout.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | en premier lieu |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Adverb |
| IPA | \ɑ̃ pʁə.mje ljø\ |
| Letters | 15 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “en premier lieu” sits in French frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The French entry for en premier lieu is 15 letters long, classified as an adverb, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \ɑ̃ pʁə.mje ljø\. It sits outside the most-frequent rank tiers, which is often why uncommon words generate more spelling variants per reader. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "Tout d’abord ; avant tout.".
Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for en premier lieu, suggesting the orthography follows predictable French patterns. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
No borrowing history is documented for this entry, so its spelling pattern is best understood through pronunciation rather than a traceable origin. The correct French form is en premier lieu, spelled E-N- -P-R-E-M-I-E-R- -L-I-E-U.
Definition
- 1Tout d’abord ; avant tout.
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.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “en premier lieu”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct French spelling is E-N- -P-R-E-M-I-E-R- -L-I-E-U - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as \ɑ̃ pʁə.mje ljø\ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- 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.