fou de Bassan

/\fu də ba.sɑ̃\/ noun

The verdict

“fou de Bassan” 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
13
letters

Dominant Wiktionary sense: Espèce d’oiseau de mer de la famille des sulidés, de l’Atlantique Nord, au plumage d’un blanc éclatant, à la tête et au cou jaune pâle.

Key facts for fou de Bassan
PropertyValue
Headwordfou de Bassan
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\fu də ba.sɑ̃\
Letters13
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Where “fou de Bassan” sits in French frequency

fou de Bassan falls outside the top-100,000 ranked French words — the long-tail zone of technical, archaic, or low-frequency vocabulary, exactly where readers second-guess spellings most.

Beyond rank #100,000. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

The French entry for fou de Bassan is 13 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \fu də ba.sɑ̃\. 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: "Espèce d’oiseau de mer de la famille des sulidés, de l’Atlantique Nord, au plumage d’un blanc éclatant, à la tête et au cou jaune pâle.".

No misspelling variants are generated for fou de Bassan 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 fou de Bassan, spelled F-O-U- -D-E- -B-A-S-S-A-N, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.

Definition

  1. 1
    Espèce d’oiseau de mer de la famille des sulidés, de l’Atlantique Nord, au plumage d’un blanc éclatant, à la tête et au cou jaune pâle.

This word in other languages

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "fou de Bassan"?
"fou de Bassan" is spelled F-O-U- -D-E- -B-A-S-S-A-N. The IPA pronunciation is \fu də ba.sɑ̃\.
What does "fou de Bassan" mean?
As a noun, "fou de Bassan" means: Espèce d’oiseau de mer de la famille des sulidés, de l’Atlantique Nord, au plumage d’un blanc éclatant, à la tête et au cou jaune pâle.
How do you pronounce "fou de Bassan"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "fou de Bassan" is \fu də ba.sɑ̃\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "fou de Bassan" come from?
"fou de Bassan" 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.

Using “fou de Bassan”

The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.

  • The one correct French spelling is F-O-U- -D-E- -B-A-S-S-A-N — every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
  • Say it as \fu də ba.sɑ̃\ (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:

Explore PlainSpell

Data Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.