hail
\heɪl\
The verdict
“hail” is an uncommon French word, ranked #59,329 in French word frequency and used as a noun.
- #59,329
- frequency rank, French
- 4
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Grêle.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | hail |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \heɪl\ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #59,329 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “hail” sits in French frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The French entry for hail is 4 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \heɪl\. Corpus data places it at rank #59,329 in overall French word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "Grêle.".
hail has no tracked misspelling variants, suggesting the orthography follows predictable French patterns. No confusable counterpart is on file for this word, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
This headword's origin isn't recorded in our source data, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. The correct French form is hail, spelled H-A-I-L.
Definition
- 1Grêle.
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
How do you spell "hail"?
What does "hail" mean?
How do you pronounce "hail"?
What language does "hail" come from?
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Using “hail”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct French spelling is H-A-I-L - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as \heɪl\ (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
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.