fretin
\fʁə.tɛ̃\
The verdict
“fretin” is uncommon French (frequency #76,593 among 3,276 “F” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #76,593
- frequency rank, French
- 3,276
- “F” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Poissons de petite taille, sans intérêt pour le pêcheur.
Corpus desk
Index FR-fretin · fretin · French
fretin · rank #76,593 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #76,593
- LEN-LONG 6 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 3,276
- PHOTO-FINISH fracassantes
Nearest frequency peer: fracassantes (-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 « fretin »
Bande clairsemée: les barres inversent le rang pour que le rare se lise plus court
- Fouesnant
Fouesnant
23,412 corpus weight
- fouillait
fouillait
23,411 corpus weight
- fracassantes
fracassantes
23,409 corpus weight
- fretin
fretin
23,408 corpus weight
- fripouille
fripouille
23,406 corpus weight
- frontera
frontera
23,405 corpus weight
What this shows Vue de longue queue: où « fretin » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | fretin |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \fʁə.tɛ̃\ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #76,593 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « fretin » en français
Rare enough to double-check
fretin is uncommon French at frequency #76,593 among 3,276 “F” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed \fʁə.tɛ̃\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
No misspelling variants are generated for fretin in our index, typically a sign the spelling maps closely to how the word sounds. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.
Our source data has no etymology on file for this entry, so its spelling is best explained by sound-to-letter mapping rather than etymology. The correct French form is fretin, spelled F-R-E-T-I-N.
Definition
- 1Poissons de petite taille, sans intérêt pour le pêcheur.
- 2Personnes ou choses de peu de valeur, peu considérées.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how fretin appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Maurice […], choisissant, comme un propriétaire dans son vivier, les truites qui lui paraissaient les plus belles, et laissant tourner impunément autour de la lanterne le menu fretin qui ne lui semblait pas digne de la sauce au bleu.
Pendant que sous la mer profonde Les cachalots et les requins Ces écumeurs géants de l’onde Libres dévorent le fretin Nous autres cloués à la rive Où la bourrasque a rejeté Notre barque un instant rétive Nous pleurons notre liberté.
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 "fretin", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked French headwords with 6 letters (nearest by frequency rank).