fennec
\fɛ.nɛk\
The verdict
“fennec” is uncommon French (frequency #65,156 among 3,276 “F” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #65,156
- frequency rank, French
- 3,276
- “F” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Petit renardcaractérisé par ses très grandes oreilles et qui vit essentiellement dans les zones désertiques de l’Afrique du Nord.
Corpus desk
Index FR-fennec · fennec · French
fennec · rank #65,156 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #65,156
- LEN-LONG 6 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 3,276
- PHOTO-FINISH fendi
Nearest frequency peer: fendi (-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 « fennec »
Bande clairsemée: les barres inversent le rang pour que le rare se lise plus court
- Fassbender
Fassbender
34,848 corpus weight
- fendi
fendi
34,846 corpus weight
- fennec
fennec
34,845 corpus weight
- festoyer
festoyer
34,844 corpus weight
- ficelée
ficelée
34,843 corpus weight
- fiente
fiente
34,842 corpus weight
What this shows Vue de longue queue: où « fennec » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | fennec |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \fɛ.nɛk\ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #65,156 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « fennec » en français
Rare enough to double-check
fennec is uncommon French at frequency #65,156 among 3,276 “F” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed \fɛ.nɛk\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Petit renardcaractérisé par ses très grandes oreilles et qui vit essentiellement dans les zones désertiques de l’Afrique du Nord.".
Zero misspellings are on record for fennec in our index, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
Our source data has no etymology on file for this entry, so any spelling logic here comes from how the word's sounds map to letters, not a documented origin story. The correct French form is fennec, spelled F-E-N-N-E-C.
Definition
- 1Petit renardcaractérisé par ses très grandes oreilles et qui vit essentiellement dans les zones désertiques de l’Afrique du Nord.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how fennec appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Coupé par un immense béret, son petit visage bien rasé, triangulaire et anguleux comme celui d’un fennec, souriait.
Le fennec symbolise la ruse dans les contes arabes.
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); 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 "fennec", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked French headwords with 6 letters (nearest by frequency rank).