ex post facto
\ɛks pɔst fak.to\
The verdict
“ex post facto” is uncommon French (outside the top frequency list), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency French
- 13
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Postérieur au fait et, généralement, rétroactif sur celui-ci.
Corpus desk
Index FR-ex-post-facto · ex post facto · French
ex post facto · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 13 letters
- VOW-4 4 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "E" 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 | ex post facto |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | \ɛks pɔst fak.to\ |
| Letters | 13 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « ex post facto » en français
Rare enough to double-check
ex post facto is uncommon French outside the top frequency list, classed as anadjective, transcribed \ɛks pɔst fak.to\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for ex post facto, a sign its spelling follows regular French conventions. We don't track a confusable pairing for this entry, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.
No borrowing history is documented for this entry, so its spelling is best read as a straightforward mapping from sound to letter. The correct French form is ex post facto, spelled E-X- -P-O-S-T- -F-A-C-T-O.
Definition
- 1Postérieur au fait et, généralement, rétroactif sur celui-ci.
- 2Qualifie une loi édictée après un fait mais qui s’applique rétroactivement à ce fait antérieur.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how ex post facto appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Si la loi allemande était appliquée aux criminels de guerre allemands, la règle interdisant les lois ex post facto ne serait pas un obstacle. Contre une telle perspective on pourrait objecter que l'abrogation de la règle contre les lois ex post facto est l'une des méthodes qui a rendu le régime nazi si haïssable […].
L’histoire est création de sens – et il ne peut pas y avoir d’ « explication » d’une création, il ne peut y avoir qu’une compréhension ex post facto de son sens.
Synonyms
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.