hocus-pocus
The verdict
“hocus-pocus” is outside the top-ranked French vocabulary, used as an interjection - the kind of word writers most often double-check.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency French
- 11
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Incantation prononcée par les magiciens avant un tour.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | hocus-pocus |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Interjection |
| Letters | 11 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “hocus-pocus” sits in French frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The French entry for hocus-pocus is 11 letters long, classified as an interjection. It sits outside the most-frequent rank tiers, which is often why uncommon words generate more spelling variants per reader. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "Incantation prononcée par les magiciens avant un tour.".
We couldn't generate a plausible misspelling set for hocus-pocus, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.
Our source data has no etymology on file for this entry, so its spelling is best explained by sound-to-letter mapping rather than etymology. The correct French form is hocus-pocus, spelled H-O-C-U-S---P-O-C-U-S.
Definition
- 1Incantation prononcée par les magiciens avant un tour.
Synonyms
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.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “hocus-pocus”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct French spelling is H-O-C-U-S---P-O-C-U-S - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- 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.