étourneau
\e.tuʁ.no\
The verdict
“étourneau” is uncommon French (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency French
- 9
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Espèce de petit oiseau passereau du genre Sturnus, au bec allongé et pointu et à petite queue.
Corpus desk
Index FR-etourneau · étourneau · French
étourneau · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-LONG 9 letters
- VOW-6 6 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "É" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
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.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | étourneau |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \e.tuʁ.no\ |
| Letters | 9 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « étourneau » en français
Rare enough to double-check
étourneau is uncommon French outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun, transcribed \e.tuʁ.no\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 3 senses are on record.
étourneau has no tracked misspelling variants, a sign its spelling follows regular French conventions. We don't track a confusable pairing for this entry, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
Wiktionary doesn't record an etymology 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 étourneau, spelled É-T-O-U-R-N-E-A-U.
Definition
- 1Espèce de petit oiseau passereau du genre Sturnus, au bec allongé et pointu et à petite queue.
- 2Jeune homme léger et inconsidéré.
- 3Cheval qui a le poil gris jaunâtre.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how étourneau appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
D’instant en instant, de grands vols d’étourneaux s’abattaient de tous les coins du ciel assombri. Ils tournoyaient à la cime des roseaux d’un vol oblique, hésitant, oscillant régulièrement comme un balancier. Ils cherchaient une place pour se poser et passer la nuit, et quand ils l’avaient trouvée, tous descendaient à la fois et les profondeurs de l’étan…
Au ciel, un vol noir d’étourneaux plongeait et remontait, en changeant de volume et de forme, le long de courbes imprévues, comme une fourmilière emportée par le vent.
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). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.