faillir

/\fa.jiʁ\/ verb

Letters

7 characters

Frequency Rank

#53,949

in French word usage

Misspellings

0

tracked variants

Confusables

0

similar word pairs

faillir is aFrenchverb. It means: Ne pas tenir le coup. Pronounced \fa.jiʁ\.

Key facts for faillir
PropertyValue
Headwordfaillir
LanguageFrench
Part of speechVerb
IPA\fa.jiʁ\
Letters7
Frequency rank#53,949
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Frequency rank visualization

Position of faillir in French word frequency (lower rank = more common)

Source: Wordfreq corpus

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

The French entry for faillir is 7 letters long, classified as averb, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \fa.jiʁ\. Corpus data places it at rank #53,949 in overall French word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it.Wiktionary records 8 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.

No frequent misspelling variants are recorded for faillir in our index, suggesting the orthography either follows predictable French patterns or the word is uncommon enough that typo corpora lack signal.It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.

No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct French form is faillir, spelled F-A-I-L-L-I-R, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.

Definition

  1. 1
    Ne pas tenir le coup.
  2. 2
    Faire preuve de manquement.
  3. 3
    Manquer à son devoir conjugal.
  4. 4
    Manquer, faire défaut.
  5. 5
    Céder, devenir faible.
  6. 6
    Manquer à exécuter, à faire une chose.
  7. 7
    (Suivi d'un infinitif) N’être pas loin de faire quelque chose, y manquer de peu. → voir raser de
  8. 8
    Se tromper, se méprendre sur quelque chose.

This word in other languages

Frequency rank: #53,949 in French

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "faillir"?
"faillir" is spelled F-A-I-L-L-I-R. The IPA pronunciation is \fa.jiʁ\.
What does "faillir" mean?
As a verb, "faillir" means: Ne pas tenir le coup.
How do you pronounce "faillir"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "faillir" is \fa.jiʁ\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "faillir" come from?
"faillir" 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.

Nearby French words

Other entries that begin with the letter F in our French index:

Explore PlainSpell

Data Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Frequency data from Wordfreq. Misspellings derived from Hunspell dictionaries.