fossil
\fɔ.ˈsiːl\
The verdict
“fossil” is uncommon French (frequency #59,300 among 3,276 “F” headwords), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #59,300
- frequency rank, French
- 3,276
- “F” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Fossile.
Corpus desk
Index FR-fossil · fossil · French
fossil · rank #59,300 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #59,300
- LEN-LONG 6 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 3,276
- PHOTO-FINISH fongicides
Nearest frequency peer: fongicides (-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 « fossil »
Bande clairsemée: les barres inversent le rang pour que le rare se lise plus court
- Flavio
Flavio
40,705 corpus weight
- fongicides
fongicides
40,702 corpus weight
- fossil
fossil
40,701 corpus weight
- foulques
foulques
40,700 corpus weight
- fray
fray
40,699 corpus weight
- Freycinet
Freycinet
40,698 corpus weight
What this shows Vue de longue queue: où « fossil » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | fossil |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | \fɔ.ˈsiːl\ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #59,300 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « fossil » en français
Rare enough to double-check
fossil is uncommon French at frequency #59,300 among 3,276 “F” headwords, classed as anadjective, transcribed \fɔ.ˈsiːl\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Fossile.".
fossil doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, a straightforward case of a spelling with little room for common typos. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.
This entry's etymology isn't recorded, so its spelling is best explained by sound-to-letter mapping rather than etymology. The correct French form is fossil, spelled F-O-S-S-I-L.
Definition
- 1Fossile.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how fossil appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Unter der Sahara befindet sich fossiles Wasser.
Die Mission ist politisch gleich doppelt heikel. Erstens: Ein grüner Minister geht auf Einkaufstour, um den Nachschub fossiler Energien für das Energiewende-Land Deutschland zu besorgen. Zweitens: Ein grüner Minister sucht die Geschäfte ausgerechnet mit Katar.
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 "fossil", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked French headwords with 6 letters (nearest by frequency rank).