étrave

\et.ʁav\

/\et.ʁav\/ noun

The verdict

“étrave” is uncommon French (frequency #63,475 among 1,805 “É” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

#63,475
frequency rank, French
1,805
“É” headwords

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Pièce centrale de bois ou de fer où viennent s’assembler les pièces qui forment l’avant, la proue d’un navire.

Corpus desk

Index FR-etrave · étrave · French

étrave · rank #63,475 · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-RARE #63,475
  • LEN-LONG 6 letters
  • VOW-3 3 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-MID 1,805
  • PHOTO-FINISH équivalait

Nearest frequency peer: équivalait (-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 « étrave »

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 « étrave » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026
Key facts for étrave
PropertyValue
Headwordétrave
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\et.ʁav\
Letters6
Frequency rank#63,475
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Longue queue: rang de « étrave » en français

Cette échelle va du noyau du français courant (gauche) jusqu'à la traîne des formes rares (droite).étravetombe dans cette queue de rareté:

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

L'axe est logarithmique: chaque tic marque environ dix fois moins de fréquence. Voisins rares de la même bande: « équivalait » (#63,474), « étreintes » (#63,476), « équine » (#63,473). Parmi 1,805 lemmes en « É », « étrave » est au #63,475. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

étrave is uncommon French at frequency #63,475 among 1,805 “É” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed \et.ʁav\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Pièce centrale de bois ou de fer où viennent s’assembler les pièces qui forment l’avant, la proue d’un navire.".

Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for étrave, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, since its spelling is unusual enough that it doesn't cluster with a lookalike.

This entry carries no recorded etymology, so its spelling is best explained by sound-to-letter mapping rather than etymology. The correct French form is étrave, spelled É-T-R-A-V-E.

Definition

  1. 1
    Pièce centrale de bois ou de fer où viennent s’assembler les pièces qui forment l’avant, la proue d’un navire.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

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

  1. Le mât de beaupré s’appuie sur l’étrave.
  2. La longueur d’un navire se mesure de l’étrave à l’étambot.

Synonyms

Antonyms

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); 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 "étrave"?
"étrave" is spelled É-T-R-A-V-E. The IPA pronunciation is \et.ʁav\.
What does "étrave" mean?
As a noun, "étrave" means: Pièce centrale de bois ou de fer où viennent s’assembler les pièces qui forment l’avant, la proue d’un navire.
How do you pronounce "étrave"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "étrave" is \et.ʁav\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "étrave" come from?
"étrave" is a French word. PlainSpell covers definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German.
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 "étrave", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked French headwords with 6 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list