fidèle
The verdict
“fidèle” is a regularly-used French word, ranked #3,138 in French word frequency and used as an adjective.
- #3,138
- frequency rank, French
- 6
- letters
- 9
- tracked misspellings
- 17
- confusable pairs
Dominant Wiktionary sense: Qui garde sa foi, à l’égard d’une personne ou d’une idée, qui est constant dans les affections, qui remplit ses devoirs, ses engagements.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | fidèle |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | \fi.dɛl\ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #3,138 |
| Misspellings tracked | 9 |
| Confusable pairs | 17 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “fidèle” sits in French frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The French entry for fidèle is 6 letters long, classified as an adjective, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \fi.dɛl\. Corpus data places it at rank #3,138 in overall French word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. Wiktionary records 10 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 9 likely wrong-spelling variants for fidèle, with forms such as "fdièle", "ffidèle", and "fiddèle". Each variant is a distinct typo pattern an edit-distance generator flags, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution. It also participates in 17 confusable-pair relationships, "file", "fiel", "fille", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
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 fidèle, spelled F-I-D-È-L-E, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1Qui garde sa foi, à l’égard d’une personne ou d’une idée, qui est constant dans les affections, qui remplit ses devoirs, ses engagements.
- 2Qui ne s’adonne pas aux amours extra-conjugales.
- 3Qui ne s’écarte pas de quelque chose ; qui n’y renonce pas.
- 4Qualifie un employé, un domestique qui a de la probité, de l’attachement pour ceux qu’il sert.
- 5Qualifie des actes, des sentiments où il y a de la fidélité.
- 6Qui professe ce qui est considéré comme la vraie religion.
- 7Qui est exact, qui ne s’écarte pas de la vérité, en parlant des personnes et des choses.
- 8Qualifie une mémoire qui retient bien et avec exactitude ; ou le souvenir exact que l’on a d’une chose.
- 9Qualifie une balance, un appareil de mesure, qui donne une mesure semblable de quantités égales.
- 10Qui ne fait pas défaut.
Antonyms
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: fdièle,ffidèle,fiddèle,fidele,fidlèe,fidèel,fidèlle,fièdle,ifdèle
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of fidèle - measured in single-character edits (insert, delete, or substitute a letter). Larger bars are easier to catch; one-edit slips are the sneakiest.
Edit distance from "fidèle"
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.
Cite this page
Free to reuse with attribution (CC BY-SA). Copy the citation:
PlainSpell, “fidèle, 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/fidele
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “fidèle”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct French spelling is F-I-D-È-L-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as \fi.dɛl\ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “file” - see the side-by-side comparison. fidèle vs file
- 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: