facepalm
\fes.palm\
The verdict
“facepalm” is uncommon French (frequency #69,070 among 3,276 “F” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #69,070
- frequency rank, French
- 3,276
- “F” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Expression gestuelle consistant à se voiler la face de sa paume pendant un bref instant souvent enjoint d'une expression faciale de dégout.
Corpus desk
Index FR-facepalm · facepalm · French
facepalm · rank #69,070 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #69,070
- LEN-LONG 8 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 3,276
- PHOTO-FINISH extrusion
Nearest frequency peer: extrusion (-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 « facepalm »
Bande clairsemée: les barres inversent le rang pour que le rare se lise plus court
- exportatrice
exportatrice
30,934 corpus weight
- extermine
extermine
30,933 corpus weight
- extrusion
extrusion
30,932 corpus weight
- facepalm
facepalm
30,931 corpus weight
- faciaux
faciaux
30,929 corpus weight
- facilitées
facilitées
30,928 corpus weight
What this shows Vue de longue queue: où « facepalm » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | facepalm |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \fes.palm\ |
| Letters | 8 |
| Frequency rank | #69,070 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « facepalm » en français
Rare enough to double-check
facepalm is uncommon French at frequency #69,070 among 3,276 “F” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed \fes.palm\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Expression gestuelle consistant à se voiler la face de sa paume pendant un bref instant souvent enjoint d'une expression faciale de dégout.".
No misspelling variants are generated for facepalm in our index, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. Our dataset records no confusable match here, suggesting its spelling stands apart enough that readers rarely confuse it with something else.
No borrowing history is documented for this entry, leaving phoneme-to-grapheme mapping as the best guide to its spelling rather than a borrowing history. The correct French form is facepalm, spelled F-A-C-E-P-A-L-M.
Definition
- 1Expression gestuelle consistant à se voiler la face de sa paume pendant un bref instant souvent enjoint d'une expression faciale de dégout.
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how facepalm appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Dominique Cardon, qui est assis à côté de la ministre, amorce un facepalm embarrassé, avant que la ministre n’embraye sur une virulente mais courte diatribe, arguant du fait que tout cela n’est qu’un concept américain fait pour défendre les intérêts de Google, Apple et consorts… et ne quitte la table pour aller prendre son train.
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
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Similar French words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "facepalm", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked French headwords with 8 letters (nearest by frequency rank).