estive
\ɛs.tiv\
The verdict
“estive” is uncommon French (frequency #92,710 among 3,255 “E” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #92,710
- frequency rank, French
- 3,255
- “E” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Pâturages de haute montagne dans les Pyrénées (on parle d’alpage dans les Alpes).
Corpus desk
Index FR-estive · estive · French
estive · rank #92,710 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #92,710
- LEN-LONG 6 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 3,255
- PHOTO-FINISH estampage
Nearest frequency peer: estampage (-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 « estive »
Bande clairsemée: les barres inversent le rang pour que le rare se lise plus court
- essentialis…
essentialiste
7,294 corpus weight
- essuyée
essuyée
7,293 corpus weight
- estampage
estampage
7,292 corpus weight
- estive
estive
7,291 corpus weight
- Etchemin
Etchemin
7,290 corpus weight
- exigibilité
exigibilité
7,287 corpus weight
What this shows Vue de longue queue: où « estive » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | estive |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \ɛs.tiv\ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #92,710 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « estive » en français
Rare enough to double-check
estive is uncommon French at frequency #92,710 among 3,255 “E” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed \ɛs.tiv\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for estive, a straightforward case of a spelling with little room for common typos. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
This entry's etymology isn't recorded, leaving phoneme-to-grapheme mapping as the best guide to its spelling rather than a borrowing history. The correct French form is estive, spelled E-S-T-I-V-E.
Definition
- 1Pâturages de haute montagne dans les Pyrénées (on parle d’alpage dans les Alpes).
- 2Séjour dans ces pâturages.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how estive appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
La montagne pyrénéenne tend à jouer le rôle de « pays naisseur » : en fin d’estive, les jeunes qui ne peuvent être nourris dans les vallées montagnardes sont vendus à des exploitants d’Aquitaine.
Ce lundi soir, à la chambre d’agriculture de l’Ariège, « la nuit d’angoisse » vécue par deux bergères sur une estive du Haut-Couserans où rôdait un ours alimente les conversations autour d’un buffet campagnard.
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 "estive", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked French headwords with 6 letters (nearest by frequency rank).