hébété
^((h muet))\e.be.te\
The verdict
“hébété” is uncommon French (frequency #74,875 among 1,969 “H” headwords), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #74,875
- frequency rank, French
- 1,969
- “H” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Qui est ou a l’air soudainement stupide.
Corpus desk
Index FR-hebete · hébété · French
hébété · rank #74,875 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #74,875
- LEN-LONG 6 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 1,969
- PHOTO-FINISH hypocritement
Nearest frequency peer: hypocritement (-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 « hébété »
Bande clairsemée: les barres inversent le rang pour que le rare se lise plus court
- hydratée
hydratée
25,128 corpus weight
- hypocriteme…
hypocritement
25,127 corpus weight
- hébété
hébété
25,126 corpus weight
- hérissée
hérissée
25,124 corpus weight
- hésitons
hésitons
25,123 corpus weight
- hétérodoxe
hétérodoxe
25,122 corpus weight
What this shows Vue de longue queue: où « hébété » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | hébété |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | ^((h muet))\e.be.te\ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #74,875 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « hébété » en français
Rare enough to double-check
hébété is uncommon French at frequency #74,875 among 1,969 “H” headwords, classed as anadjective, transcribed ^((h muet))\e.be.te\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Qui est ou a l’air soudainement stupide.".
The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for hébété, a sign its spelling follows regular French conventions. We don't track a confusable pairing for this entry, suggesting its spelling stands apart enough that readers rarely confuse it with something else.
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 hébété, spelled H-É-B-É-T-É.
Definition
- 1Qui est ou a l’air soudainement stupide.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how hébété appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Non, il n’existe pas de plus maussade engeance que celle des femmes de la bourgeoisie turque, au teint blême, aux poitrines en avalanches, niaises, fanatiques, hébétées, badigeonnées de noir, de blanc et de rouge, et qui vivent seulement pour les grossiers plaisirs d’un époux stupide!
Il ne se découvrit pas et se mit à regarder autour de lui, avec ce sourire hébété des ivrognes et des gens grossiers qui se sentent insolents.
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 "hébété", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked French headwords with 6 letters (nearest by frequency rank).