ergot
\ɛʁ.ɡo\
The verdict
“ergot” is an uncommon French word, ranked #63,728 in French word frequency and used as a noun.
- #63,728
- frequency rank, French
- 5
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) — Petit éperon pointu osseux et corné de la patte des oiseaux galliformes mâles.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | ergot |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \ɛʁ.ɡo\ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #63,728 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “ergot” sits in French frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The French entry for ergot is 5 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \ɛʁ.ɡo\. Corpus data places it at rank #63,728 in overall French word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. Wiktionary records 7 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
No misspelling variants are generated for ergot in our index, suggesting the orthography follows predictable French patterns. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
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 ergot, spelled E-R-G-O-T, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1Petit éperon pointu osseux et corné de la patte des oiseaux galliformes mâles.
- 2Doigt supplémentaire chez certaines races de chiens
- 3Petite pièce servant de butée ou de clavette sur une pièce plus massive.
- 4Petite pièce mobile placée à droite et à gauche sous un clavier d'ordinateur permettant d'incliner celui-ci lorsqu'il est posé sur un bureau.
- 5Petite branche morte d’un arbre fruitier.
- 6Maladie cryptogamique qui attaque le blé, le seigle et qui rend dangereux le pain qu’on fait de ce grain ainsi gâté→ voir ergot de seigle.
- 7Petit trait horizontal rattaché le plus souvent à gauche du fut de la lettre minuscule s long, de la lettre minuscule eszett, ou de la lettre minuscule l dans certaines polices de caractères.
Synonyms
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.
Cite this page
Free to reuse with attribution (CC BY-SA). Copy the citation:
PlainSpell, “ergot, 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/ergot
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Using “ergot”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct French spelling is E-R-G-O-T - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as \ɛʁ.ɡo\ (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
Nearby French words
Other entries that begin with the letter E in our French index: