herbe à couteau
\ɛʁ.b‿a ku.to\
The verdict
“herbe à couteau” is uncommon French (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency French
- 15
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Ancien nom vernaculaire de l'ivraie enivrante.
Corpus desk
Index FR-herbe-a-couteau · herbe à couteau · French
herbe à couteau · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 15 letters
- VOW-8 8 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "H" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
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.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | herbe à couteau |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \ɛʁ.b‿a ku.to\ |
| Letters | 15 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « herbe à couteau » en français
Rare enough to double-check
herbe à couteau is uncommon French outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun, transcribed \ɛʁ.b‿a ku.to\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
herbe à couteau has no tracked misspelling variants, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable French rules. Our dataset records no confusable match here, since its spelling is unusual enough that it doesn't cluster with a lookalike.
Our source data has no etymology on file for this entry, so its spelling is easiest to reason about phoneme by phoneme, absent a documented history. The correct French form is herbe à couteau, spelled H-E-R-B-E- -À- -C-O-U-T-E-A-U.
Definition
- 1Ancien nom vernaculaire de l'ivraie enivrante.
- 2Ancien nom vernaculaire du carex.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how herbe à couteau appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
La famille des graminées ne possède que fort peu de plantes vénéneuses; nous citerons parmi ces dernières l’ivraie enivrante ou herbe à couteau. Il ne faudra toutefois pas, mes enfants, confondre cette mauvaise herbe avec l’ivraie vivace qui ne possède que des vertus bienfaisantes.
Outre deux plantes nouvelles, la calebasse d’herbes (Cucurbita lagenaria) et l’herbe à couteau (Carex), nous trouvons ici pour la première fois la recommandation d'une prière.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.