étoile
\e.twal\
The verdict
“étoile” is a regularly-used French word, ranked #3,306 in French word frequency and used as a noun.
- #3,306
- frequency rank, French
- 6
- letters
- 8
- tracked misspellings
- 13
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Corps céleste brillant, ou ayant brillé, de sa propre lumière.
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 | étoile |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \e.twal\ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #3,306 |
| Misspellings tracked | 8 |
| Confusable pairs | 13 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “étoile” sits in French frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The French entry for étoile is 6 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \e.twal\. Corpus data places it at rank #3,306 in overall French word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. Wiktionary records 15 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 8 likely wrong-spelling variants for étoile, with forms such as "etoile", "téoile", and "éotile". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It also participates in 13 confusable-pair relationships, "exilé", "étonne", "étoiles", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Our source data has no etymology on file for this entry, so any spelling logic here comes from how the word's sounds map to letters, not a documented origin story. The correct French form is étoile, spelled É-T-O-I-L-E.
Definition
- 1Corps céleste brillant, ou ayant brillé, de sa propre lumière.
- 2Forme géométrique composée de branches, comme ☆ et ✡.
- 3Astérisque, symbole « * », présent sur les claviers d’ordinateur, de téléphone portable, etc.
- 4Signe, pouvant être répété, indiquant la qualité, l’aspect positif de quelque chose. On trouve parfois des demi-étoiles qui désignent des points intermédiaires. — Symbole établissant une échelle de notation et de classification hôtelière et gastronomique par le Guide Michelin, se retrouvant sur la signalétique des établissements concernés.
- 5Grade le plus haut de certaines hiérarchies, plus particulièrement en danse classique.
- 6Personne ayant un rayonnement par son talent, sa notoriété.
- 7Pièce d’artifice qui imite, dans les airs, l’éclat d’une étoile.
- 8Marque blanche sur le front, en parlant des chevaux ou des bœufs.
- 9Fortin à quatre, cinq ou six angles saillants.
- 10Meuble représentant l’astre céleste dans les armoiries. Elle est généralement représentées à cinq branches (quand le nombre diffère, on doit le blasonner) avec une pointe dirigée vers le chef, sinon on doit préciser l’orientation.
- 11Étoile de mer, astérie.
- 12Dix-septième atout du tarot de Marseille.
- 13Destinée d’une personne. → voir croire en son étoile
- 14Étoile jaune, insigne dont le port était imposé aux Juifs pendant la Seconde Guerre mondiale.
- 15Carrefour comportant plus de quatre voies qui s’étendent dans plusieurs directions à partir d’un point central.
Synonyms
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: etoile,téoile,éotile,étiole,étoiel,étoille,étolie,éttoile
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of étoile - expressed in single-character edits (insert, delete, or swap one letter). Bigger bars stand out at a glance; a one-edit slip is the hardest to catch.
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
How do you spell "étoile"?
What does "étoile" mean?
What words are commonly confused with "étoile"?
How do you pronounce "étoile"?
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Is PlainSpell free to use?
Using “étoile”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct French spelling is É-T-O-I-L-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as \e.twal\ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “exilé” - see the side-by-side comparison. étoile vs exilé
- Browse more French words and confusable pairs in the same reference. French words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.