il faut quarante-sept muscles pour froncer les sourcils et seulement treize pour sourire

\il fo ka.ʁɑ̃t.sɛt myskl puʁ fʁɔ̃.se le suʁ.si.l‿e sœl.mɑ̃ tʁɛz puʁ su.ʁiʁ\

/\il fo ka.ʁɑ̃t.sɛt myskl puʁ fʁɔ̃.se le suʁ.si.l‿e sœl.mɑ̃ tʁɛz puʁ su.ʁiʁ\/ phrase

The verdict

“il faut quarante-sept muscles pour froncer les sourcils et seulement treize pour sourire” is outside the top-ranked French vocabulary, used as a phrase - the kind of word writers most often double-check.

Unranked
below top-frequency French
88
letters

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) — Mieux vaut sourire que de faire la tête, c’est moins fatiguant.

Key facts for il faut quarante-sept muscles pour froncer les sourcils et seulement treize pour sourire
PropertyValue
Headwordil faut quarante-sept muscles pour froncer les sourcils et seulement treize pour sourire
LanguageFrench
Part of speechPhrase
IPA\il fo ka.ʁɑ̃t.sɛt myskl puʁ fʁɔ̃.se le suʁ.si.l‿e sœl.mɑ̃ tʁɛz puʁ su.ʁiʁ\
Letters88
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Where “il faut quarante-sept muscles pour froncer les sourcils et seulement treize pour sourire” sits in French frequency

il faut quarante-sept muscles pour froncer les sourcils et seulement treize pour sourire falls outside the top-100,000 ranked French words, the long-tail zone of technical, archaic, or low-frequency vocabulary, exactly where readers second-guess spellings most.

Beyond rank #100,000. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

The French entry for il faut quarante-sept muscles pour froncer les sourcils et seulement treize pour sourire is 88 letters long, classified as a phrase, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \il fo ka.ʁɑ̃t.sɛt myskl puʁ fʁɔ̃.se le suʁ.si.l‿e sœl.mɑ̃ tʁɛz puʁ su.ʁiʁ\. 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: "Mieux vaut sourire que de faire la tête, c’est moins fatiguant.".

No misspelling variants are generated for il faut quarante-sept muscles pour froncer les sourcils et seulement treize pour sourire in our index, suggesting the orthography follows predictable French patterns. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.

No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct French form is il faut quarante-sept muscles pour froncer les sourcils et seulement treize pour sourire, spelled I-L- -F-A-U-T- -Q-U-A-R-A-N-T-E---S-E-P-T- -M-U-S-C-L-E-S- -P-O-U-R- -F-R-O-N-C-E-R- -L-E-S- -S-O-U-R-C-I-L-S- -E-T- -S-E-U-L-E-M-E-N-T- -T-R-E-I-Z-E- -P-O-U-R- -S-O-U-R-I-R-E, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.

Definition

  1. 1
    Mieux vaut sourire que de faire la tête, c’est moins fatiguant.

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.

Cite this page

Free to reuse with attribution (CC BY-SA). Copy the citation:

PlainSpell, “il faut quarante-sept muscles pour froncer les sourcils et seulement treize pour sourire, French word data” (May 6, 2026). Derived from Wiktionary (kaikki.org, CC BY-SA) and an open word-frequency list. https://plainspell.com/fr/mot/il-faut-quarante-sept-muscles-pour-froncer-les-sourcils-et-seulement-treize-pour-sourire

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "il faut quarante-sept muscles pour froncer les sourcils et seulement treize pour sourire"?
"il faut quarante-sept muscles pour froncer les sourcils et seulement treize pour sourire" is spelled I-L- -F-A-U-T- -Q-U-A-R-A-N-T-E---S-E-P-T- -M-U-S-C-L-E-S- -P-O-U-R- -F-R-O-N-C-E-R- -L-E-S- -S-O-U-R-C-I-L-S- -E-T- -S-E-U-L-E-M-E-N-T- -T-R-E-I-Z-E- -P-O-U-R- -S-O-U-R-I-R-E. The IPA pronunciation is \il fo ka.ʁɑ̃t.sɛt myskl puʁ fʁɔ̃.se le suʁ.si.l‿e sœl.mɑ̃ tʁɛz puʁ su.ʁiʁ\.
What does "il faut quarante-sept muscles pour froncer les sourcils et seulement treize pour sourire" mean?
As a phrase, "il faut quarante-sept muscles pour froncer les sourcils et seulement treize pour sourire" means: Mieux vaut sourire que de faire la tête, c’est moins fatiguant.
How do you pronounce "il faut quarante-sept muscles pour froncer les sourcils et seulement treize pour sourire"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "il faut quarante-sept muscles pour froncer les sourcils et seulement treize pour sourire" is \il fo ka.ʁɑ̃t.sɛt myskl puʁ fʁɔ̃.se le suʁ.si.l‿e sœl.mɑ̃ tʁɛz puʁ su.ʁiʁ\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "il faut quarante-sept muscles pour froncer les sourcils et seulement treize pour sourire" come from?
"il faut quarante-sept muscles pour froncer les sourcils et seulement treize pour sourire" is a French word. PlainSpell covers definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German.
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Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Using “il faut quarante-sept muscles pour froncer les sourcils et seulement treize pour sourire”

The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.

  • The one correct French spelling is I-L- -F-A-U-T- -Q-U-A-R-A-N-T-E---S-E-P-T- -M-U-S-C-L-E-S- -P-O-U-R- -F-R-O-N-C-E-R- -L-E-S- -S-O-U-R-C-I-L-S- -E-T- -S-E-U-L-E-M-E-N-T- -T-R-E-I-Z-E- -P-O-U-R- -S-O-U-R-I-R-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
  • Say it as \il fo ka.ʁɑ̃t.sɛt myskl puʁ fʁɔ̃.se le suʁ.si.l‿e sœl.mɑ̃ tʁɛz puʁ su.ʁiʁ\ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
  • Browse more French words and confusable pairs in the same reference. French words

Nearby French words

Other entries that begin with the letter I in our French index:

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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.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list FrequencyWords open word-frequency list