handsome
\ˈhæn.səm\
The verdict
“handsome” is uncommon French (frequency #77,580 among 1,969 “H” headwords), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #77,580
- frequency rank, French
- 1,969
- “H” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Adroit, habile.
Corpus desk
Index FR-handsome · handsome · French
handsome · rank #77,580 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #77,580
- LEN-LONG 8 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 1,969
- PHOTO-FINISH habibi
Nearest frequency peer: habibi (-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 « handsome »
Bande clairsemée: les barres inversent le rang pour que le rare se lise plus court
- Gustin
Gustin
22,425 corpus weight
- génialissime
génialissime
22,424 corpus weight
- Göttingen
Göttingen
22,423 corpus weight
- habibi
habibi
22,422 corpus weight
- handsome
handsome
22,421 corpus weight
- herbeux
herbeux
22,417 corpus weight
What this shows Vue de longue queue: où « handsome » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | handsome |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | \ˈhæn.səm\ |
| Letters | 8 |
| Frequency rank | #77,580 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « handsome » en français
Rare enough to double-check
handsome is uncommon French at frequency #77,580 among 1,969 “H” headwords, classed as anadjective, transcribed \ˈhæn.səm\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 3 senses are on record.
No generated misspelling entries exist for handsome in our index, a straightforward case of a spelling with little room for common typos. Our dataset records no confusable match here, which typically means the spelling is too distinctive to be mistaken for another word.
This entry carries no recorded etymology, leaving phoneme-to-grapheme mapping as the best guide to its spelling rather than a borrowing history. The correct French form is handsome, spelled H-A-N-D-S-O-M-E.
Definition
- 1Adroit, habile.
- 2Juste, honnête, loyal.
- 3Joli, beau, belle ; généralement en parlant d’un homme. (voir notes)
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how handsome appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
About thirty years ago Miss Maria Ward […] had the good luck to captivate Sir Thomas Bertram […] and to be thereby raised to the rank of a baronet’s lady, with all the comforts and consequences of an handsome house and large income.
Synonyms
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 "handsome", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked French headwords with 8 letters (nearest by frequency rank).