fausse bonne idée
\fos bɔ.n‿i.de\
The verdict
“fausse bonne idée” is outside the top-ranked French vocabulary, used as a noun - the kind of word writers most often double-check.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency French
- 17
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Idée a priori originale et séduisante mais qui se montre, a posteriori, moins pertinente ou utile que prévu, voire qui a un effet pervers inattendu.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | fausse bonne idée |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \fos bɔ.n‿i.de\ |
| Letters | 17 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “fausse bonne idée” sits in French frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The French entry for fausse bonne idée is 17 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \fos bɔ.n‿i.de\. It sits outside the most-frequent rank tiers, which is often why uncommon words generate more spelling variants per reader. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "Idée a priori originale et séduisante mais qui se montre, a posteriori, moins pertinente ou utile que prévu, voire qui a un effet pervers inattendu.".
No misspelling variants are generated for fausse bonne idée in our index, suggesting the orthography follows predictable French patterns. 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 fausse bonne idée, spelled F-A-U-S-S-E- -B-O-N-N-E- -I-D-É-E, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1Idée a priori originale et séduisante mais qui se montre, a posteriori, moins pertinente ou utile que prévu, voire qui a un effet pervers inattendu.
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.
Cite this page
Free to reuse with attribution (CC BY-SA). Copy the citation:
PlainSpell, “fausse bonne idée, French word data” (May 6, 2026). Derived from Wiktionary (kaikki.org, CC BY-SA) and an open word-frequency list. https://plainspell.com/fr/mot/fausse-bonne-idee
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “fausse bonne idée”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct French spelling is F-A-U-S-S-E- -B-O-N-N-E- -I-D-É-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as \fos bɔ.n‿i.de\ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Browse more French words and confusable pairs in the same reference. French words
Nearby French words
Other entries that begin with the letter F in our French index: