encan
\ɑ̃.kɑ̃\
The verdict
“encan” is uncommon French (frequency #55,925 among 3,255 “E” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #55,925
- frequency rank, French
- 3,255
- “E” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Vente publique à l’enchère, au plus offrant et dernier enchérisseur.
Corpus desk
Index FR-encan · encan · French
encan · rank #55,925 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #55,925
- LEN-MID 5 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 3,255
- PHOTO-FINISH empêchez
Nearest frequency peer: empêchez (-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.
Rangs de longue queue près de « encan »
Bande clairsemée: les barres inversent le rang pour que le rare se lise plus court
- embrancheme…
embranchements
44,079 corpus weight
- Emilion
Emilion
44,078 corpus weight
- empêchez
empêchez
44,077 corpus weight
- encan
encan
44,076 corpus weight
- enchanter
enchanter
44,075 corpus weight
- encombrante
encombrante
44,074 corpus weight
What this shows Vue de longue queue: où « encan » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | encan |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \ɑ̃.kɑ̃\ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #55,925 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « encan » en français
Rare enough to double-check
encan is uncommon French at frequency #55,925 among 3,255 “E” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed \ɑ̃.kɑ̃\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Vente publique à l’enchère, au plus offrant et dernier enchérisseur.".
encan doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. This entry stands alone in our confusable dataset, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.
This entry carries no recorded etymology, so its spelling is best explained by sound-to-letter mapping rather than etymology. The correct French form is encan, spelled E-N-C-A-N.
Definition
- 1Vente publique à l’enchère, au plus offrant et dernier enchérisseur.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how encan appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Une autre source de l’esclavage était la traite […] Le commerce se faisait ouvertement à Délos où, si l’on en croit Strabon, il y avait des jours où plus de 10 000 êtres humains étaient à l’encan.
Il se disait sans doute, que de l’autre côté de la Manche on met à l’encan les titres de lord.
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); 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 "encan", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked French headwords with 5 letters (nearest by frequency rank).