étonnait
\e.tɔ.nɛ\
The verdict
“étonnait” is uncommon French (frequency #50,606 among 1,805 “É” headwords), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #50,606
- frequency rank, French
- 1,805
- “É” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Troisième personne du singulier de l’imparfait de l’indicatif de étonner.
Corpus desk
Index FR-etonnait · étonnait · French
étonnait · rank #50,606 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #50,606
- LEN-LONG 8 letters
- VOW-4 4 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 1,805
- PHOTO-FINISH éthylène
Nearest frequency peer: éthylène (-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 « étonnait »
Bande clairsemée: les barres inversent le rang pour que le rare se lise plus court
- éteignit
éteignit
49,398 corpus weight
- éternuer
éternuer
49,397 corpus weight
- éthylène
éthylène
49,396 corpus weight
- étonnait
étonnait
49,395 corpus weight
- 2CV
2CV
49,394 corpus weight
- 8es
8es
49,392 corpus weight
What this shows Vue de longue queue: où « étonnait » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | étonnait |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | \e.tɔ.nɛ\ |
| Letters | 8 |
| Frequency rank | #50,606 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « étonnait » en français
Rare enough to double-check
étonnait is uncommon French at frequency #50,606 among 1,805 “É” headwords, classed as averb, transcribed \e.tɔ.nɛ\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Troisième personne du singulier de l’imparfait de l’indicatif de étonner.".
We couldn't generate a plausible misspelling set for étonnait, suggesting the orthography follows predictable French patterns. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, which usually means its spelling is distinct enough that readers don't reach for a similar-looking word instead.
No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, leaving phoneme-to-grapheme mapping as the best guide to its spelling rather than a borrowing history. The correct French form is étonnait, spelled É-T-O-N-N-A-I-T.
Definition
- 1Troisième personne du singulier de l’imparfait de l’indicatif de étonner.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how étonnait appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Que Romain ne s’en souciât pas, y prît même un certain plaisir, cela étonnait le jeune homme et il en concevait en même temps du mépris et un peu d’admiration pour cet homme qui savait si bien oublier, ou si bien se venger du mal qu’il avait fait.
Il s’accoutuma à passer des semaines entières hors de chez lui, et, quand il y revenait un jour en humeur de faire du train, il y était désencoléré par un silence si patient, qu’il s’en étonnait d’abord et finissait par s’endormir.
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 "étonnait"?
What does "étonnait" mean?
How do you pronounce "étonnait"?
What language does "étonnait" come from?
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Similar French words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "étonnait", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked French headwords with 8 letters (nearest by frequency rank).