gab
\ɡab\
The verdict
“gab” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #36,857) as a noun. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.
- #36,857
- frequency rank, French
- 2,617
- “G” headwords
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Plaisanterie, raillerie, badinerie, chose dite ou faite pour amuser.
Corpus desk
Index FR-gab · gab · French
gab · rank #36,857 · 0 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-MID #36,857
- LEN-MID 3 letters
- VOW-1 1 vowel
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 2,617
- PHOTO-FINISH féconde
Nearest frequency peer: féconde (-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.
Voisins de fréquence du confusable « gab »
Pairs de poids proche dans le corpus, séparés des confusables ci-dessous
- franchis
franchis
63,147 corpus weight
- francisation
francisation
63,146 corpus weight
- féconde
féconde
63,145 corpus weight
- gab
gab
63,144 corpus weight
- galon
galon
63,143 corpus weight
- gasquet
gasquet
63,142 corpus weight
What this shows Les barres placent « gab » face aux lemmes français les plus proches par rang, pas un reprint du bureau des confusables.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | gab |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \ɡab\ |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #36,857 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Rang de corpus près des confusables de « gab »
Easy to mix with look-alikes
The spelling risk for gab is neighbouring look-alikes ("go", "GR", …), not just typos; it is anoun pronounced \ɡab\. Frequency #36,857 among 2,617 “G” headwords. Gloss: "Plaisanterie, raillerie, badinerie, chose dite ou faite pour amuser.".
gab has no tracked misspelling variants, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "go", "GR", "GT", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
This entry carries no recorded etymology, so its spelling is easiest to reason about phoneme by phoneme, absent a documented history. The correct French form is gab, spelled G-A-B.
Definition
- 1Plaisanterie, raillerie, badinerie, chose dite ou faite pour amuser.
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how gab appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Toute une escouade d’ouvriers de la Creuse, qui choquaient leurs verres en parlant du pays et faisaient des gabs comme les douze pairs de Charlemagne.
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 "gab", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked French headwords with 3 letters (nearest by frequency rank).