épée
\e.pe\
The verdict
“épée” is a regularly-used French word, ranked #4,724 in French word frequency and used as a noun.
- #4,724
- frequency rank, French
- 4
- letters
- 5
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Arme offensive et défensive composée d’une longue lame affilée de section triangulaire avec une poignée et que les guerriers portaient au côté dans un fourreau.
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 | épée |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \e.pe\ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #4,724 |
| Misspellings tracked | 5 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “épée” sits in French frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The French entry for épée is 4 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \e.pe\. Corpus data places it at rank #4,724 in overall French word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. Wiktionary records 7 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 5 likely wrong-spelling variants for épée, with forms such as "epee", "péée", and "épeé". Each variant is a distinct typo pattern an edit-distance generator flags, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "été", "eve", "eue", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct French form is épée, spelled É-P-É-E, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1Arme offensive et défensive composée d’une longue lame affilée de section triangulaire avec une poignée et que les guerriers portaient au côté dans un fourreau.
- 2Pratique sportive
- 3L’état des gens de guerre, l’état militaire, surtout par opposition à l’état des gens de robe ou d’Église.
- 4Le courage, la valeur ou la force de celui qui manie les armes.
- 5Une des quatre enseignes d’un jeu de cartes latin, ainsi nommée parce que les cartes de cette couleur sont marquées d’épées stylisées.
- 6As, personne très compétente, nettement au-dessus des autres.
- 7Meuble représentant l’arme du même nom dans les armoiries. Elle est généralement représentée avec une poignée munie d’une garde avec une lame longue et droite. Elle est ordinairement posée en pal. Mais son orientation n’est pas prédéfinie. Il faut donc la préciser lors du blasonnement. On dira l’épée haute quand la pointe est vers le chef et basse ou versée quand elle est pointe vers la pointe de l’écu. À rapprocher de badelaire, coutelas, couteau, cimeterre, kriss, rapière et sabre.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: epee,péée,épeé,éppée,éépe
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of épée - measured in single-character edits (insert, delete, or substitute a letter). Larger bars are easier to catch; one-edit slips are the sneakiest.
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.
Cite this page
Free to reuse with attribution (CC BY-SA). Copy the citation:
PlainSpell, “épée, French word data” (May 6, 2026). Derived from Wiktionary (kaikki.org, CC BY-SA) and an open word-frequency list. https://plainspell.com/fr/mot/epee
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “épée”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct French spelling is É-P-É-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as \e.pe\ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “été” - see the side-by-side comparison. épée vs été
- Browse more French words and confusable pairs in the same reference. French words
Nearby French words
Other entries that begin with the letter É in our French index: