éternuer
\e.tɛʁ.nɥe\
The verdict
“éternuer” is uncommon French (frequency #50,604 among 1,805 “É” headwords), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #50,604
- frequency rank, French
- 1,805
- “É” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Expirer violemment, avec un mouvement convulsif des muscles, à la fois par le nez et par la bouche.
Corpus desk
Index FR-eternuer · éternuer · French
éternuer · rank #50,604 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #50,604
- LEN-LONG 8 letters
- VOW-4 4 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 1,805
- PHOTO-FINISH éteignit
Nearest frequency peer: éteignit (-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 « éternuer »
Bande clairsemée: les barres inversent le rang pour que le rare se lise plus court
- éhontée
éhontée
49,400 corpus weight
- épure
épure
49,399 corpus weight
- éteignit
éteignit
49,398 corpus weight
- éternuer
éternuer
49,397 corpus weight
- éthylène
éthylène
49,396 corpus weight
- étonnait
étonnait
49,395 corpus weight
What this shows Vue de longue queue: où « éternuer » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | éternuer |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | \e.tɛʁ.nɥe\ |
| Letters | 8 |
| Frequency rank | #50,604 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « éternuer » en français
Rare enough to double-check
éternuer is uncommon French at frequency #50,604 among 1,805 “É” headwords, classed as averb, transcribed \e.tɛʁ.nɥe\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
No misspelling variants are generated for éternuer in our index, a straightforward case of a spelling with little room for common typos. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.
No borrowing history is documented for this entry, so its spelling is easiest explained by how it's pronounced rather than where it came from. The correct French form is éternuer, spelled É-T-E-R-N-U-E-R.
Definition
- 1Expirer violemment, avec un mouvement convulsif des muscles, à la fois par le nez et par la bouche.
- 2Définition manquante ou à compléter. (Ajouter)
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how éternuer appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Il éternue souvent.
Nous ne restons pas très longtemps parce que la poussière nous fait bientôt éternuer et pique nos yeux.
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.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Similar French words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "éternuer", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked French headwords with 8 letters (nearest by frequency rank).