hau
^((h aspiré))\o\
The verdict
“hau” is uncommon French (frequency #52,101 among 1,969 “H” headwords), classed as an interjection. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #52,101
- frequency rank, French
- 1,969
- “H” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - S’emploie pour appeler la meute, quand le cerf est dans l’eau.
Corpus desk
Index FR-hau · hau · French
hau · rank #52,101 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #52,101
- LEN-MID 3 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 1,969
- PHOTO-FINISH Haskell
Nearest frequency peer: Haskell (-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 « hau »
Bande clairsemée: les barres inversent le rang pour que le rare se lise plus court
- habita
habita
47,903 corpus weight
- Haskell
Haskell
47,901 corpus weight
- hau
hau
47,900 corpus weight
- haul
haul
47,899 corpus weight
- Havana
Havana
47,898 corpus weight
- hells
hells
47,897 corpus weight
What this shows Vue de longue queue: où « hau » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | hau |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Interjection |
| IPA | ^((h aspiré))\o\ |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #52,101 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « hau » en français
Rare enough to double-check
hau is uncommon French at frequency #52,101 among 1,969 “H” headwords, classed as aninterjection, transcribed ^((h aspiré))\o\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "S’emploie pour appeler la meute, quand le cerf est dans l’eau.".
Zero misspellings are on record for hau in our index, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, which typically means the spelling is too distinctive to be mistaken for another word.
Wiktionary doesn't record an etymology for this headword, so any spelling logic here comes from how the word's sounds map to letters, not a documented origin story. The correct French form is hau, spelled H-A-U.
Definition
- 1S’emploie pour appeler la meute, quand le cerf est dans l’eau.
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how hau appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Hau, il bat l’eau !
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 "hau"?
What does "hau" mean?
How do you pronounce "hau"?
What language does "hau" come from?
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Similar French words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "hau", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked French headwords with 3 letters (nearest by frequency rank).