étouffait

\e.tu.fɛ\

/\e.tu.fɛ\/ verb

The verdict

“étouffait” is uncommon French (frequency #66,452 among 1,805 “É” headwords), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

#66,452
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 étouffer.

Corpus desk

Index FR-etouffait · étouffait · French

étouffait · rank #66,452 · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-RARE #66,452
  • LEN-LONG 9 letters
  • VOW-5 5 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-MID 1,805
  • PHOTO-FINISH épousait

Nearest frequency peer: épousait (-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 « étouffait »

Bande clairsemée: les barres inversent le rang pour que le rare se lise plus court

corpus weight

What this shows Vue de longue queue: où « étouffait » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026
Key facts for étouffait
PropertyValue
Headwordétouffait
LanguageFrench
Part of speechVerb
IPA\e.tu.fɛ\
Letters9
Frequency rank#66,452
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Longue queue: rang de « étouffait » en français

La fréquence va de la poignée de mots du quotidien (gauche) à la longue queue presque jamais vue (droite).étouffaittombe dans cette queue de rareté:

#1#100#1K#10K#100K
← used constantlyrarely used →

Les tics avancent en logarithme; chacun est de l'ordre de dix fois plus rare. Voisins rares de la même bande: « épousait » (#66,451), « évaluez » (#66,453), « épithètes » (#66,450). Parmi 1,805 lemmes en « É », « étouffait » est au #66,452. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

étouffait is uncommon French at frequency #66,452 among 1,805 “É” headwords, classed as averb, transcribed \e.tu.fɛ\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Troisième personne du singulier de l’imparfait de l’indicatif de étouffer.".

We couldn't generate a plausible misspelling set for étouffait, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. Our dataset records no confusable match here, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.

No documented word history exists for this headword, leaving phoneme-to-grapheme mapping as the best guide to its spelling rather than a borrowing history. The correct French form is étouffait, spelled É-T-O-U-F-F-A-I-T.

Definition

  1. 1
    Troisième personne du singulier de l’imparfait de l’indicatif de étouffer.

Recorded use

Wiktionary example

These source excerpts show how étouffait appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. Lui, étouffait, râlait déjà ; tandis qu’elle, la bouche libre, suppliait éperdument qu’on se hâtât, épouvantée, le cœur arraché, à sentir qu’elle le tuait.

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 "étouffait"?
"étouffait" is spelled É-T-O-U-F-F-A-I-T. The IPA pronunciation is \e.tu.fɛ\.
What does "étouffait" mean?
As a verb, "étouffait" means: Troisième personne du singulier de l’imparfait de l’indicatif de étouffer.
How do you pronounce "étouffait"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "étouffait" is \e.tu.fɛ\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "étouffait" come from?
"étouffait" is a French word. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for this and other words across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German on PlainSpell.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Similar French words by spelling shape

Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "étouffait", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked French headwords with 9 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list