étonnant
The verdict
“étonnant” is a regularly-used French word, ranked #3,728 in French word frequency and used as an adjective.
- #3,728
- frequency rank, French
- 8
- letters
- 11
- tracked misspellings
- 5
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Qui étonne, qui surprend.
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 | étonnant |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| Letters | 8 |
| Frequency rank | #3,728 |
| Misspellings tracked | 11 |
| Confusable pairs | 5 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “étonnant” sits in French frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The French entry for étonnant is 8 letters long, classified as an adjective. Corpus data places it at rank #3,728 in overall French word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. Wiktionary records 2 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 11 likely wrong-spelling variants for étonnant, with forms such as "etonnant", "téonnant", and "éotnnant". 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 5 confusable-pair relationships, "étonnent", "étonnante", "étonnants", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
No documented word history exists for this headword, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. The correct French form is étonnant, spelled É-T-O-N-N-A-N-T.
Definition
- 1Qui étonne, qui surprend.
- 2Qualifie quelqu’un qui est extraordinaire, soit en bien, soit en mal.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: etonnant,téonnant,éotnnant,étnonant,étonannt,étonant,étonnannt,étonnantt,étonnatn,étonnnat,éttonnant
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of étonnant - measured in single-character edits (insert, delete, or substitute a letter). Larger bars are easier to catch; one-edit slips are the sneakiest.
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 "étonnant"?
What does "étonnant" mean?
What words are commonly confused with "étonnant"?
What language does "étonnant" come from?
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Using “étonnant”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct French spelling is É-T-O-N-N-A-N-T - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Don't mix it up with “étonnent” - see the side-by-side comparison. étonnant vs étonnent
- 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.