il ne faut pas réveiller le chat qui dort

\il nə fo pa ʁe.ve.je lə ʃa ki dɔʁ\

/\il nə fo pa ʁe.ve.je lə ʃa ki dɔʁ\/ phrase

The verdict

“il ne faut pas réveiller le chat qui dort” 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
41
letters

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) — Il faut laisser les choses comme elles sont et éviter de ranimer une querelle ou un désagrément qui appartient au passé.

Key facts for il ne faut pas réveiller le chat qui dort
PropertyValue
Headwordil ne faut pas réveiller le chat qui dort
LanguageFrench
Part of speechPhrase
IPA\il nə fo pa ʁe.ve.je lə ʃa ki dɔʁ\
Letters41
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Where “il ne faut pas réveiller le chat qui dort” sits in French frequency

il ne faut pas réveiller le chat qui dort 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 ne faut pas réveiller le chat qui dort is 41 letters long, classified as a phrase, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \il nə fo pa ʁe.ve.je lə ʃa ki dɔʁ\. 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: "Il faut laisser les choses comme elles sont et éviter de ranimer une querelle ou un désagrément qui appartient au passé.".

No misspelling variants are generated for il ne faut pas réveiller le chat qui dort 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 ne faut pas réveiller le chat qui dort, spelled I-L- -N-E- -F-A-U-T- -P-A-S- -R-É-V-E-I-L-L-E-R- -L-E- -C-H-A-T- -Q-U-I- -D-O-R-T, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.

Definition

  1. 1
    Il faut laisser les choses comme elles sont et éviter de ranimer une querelle ou un désagrément qui appartient au passé.

This word in other languages

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 ne faut pas réveiller le chat qui dort, 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-ne-faut-pas-reveiller-le-chat-qui-dort

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "il ne faut pas réveiller le chat qui dort"?
"il ne faut pas réveiller le chat qui dort" is spelled I-L- -N-E- -F-A-U-T- -P-A-S- -R-É-V-E-I-L-L-E-R- -L-E- -C-H-A-T- -Q-U-I- -D-O-R-T. The IPA pronunciation is \il nə fo pa ʁe.ve.je lə ʃa ki dɔʁ\.
What does "il ne faut pas réveiller le chat qui dort" mean?
As a phrase, "il ne faut pas réveiller le chat qui dort" means: Il faut laisser les choses comme elles sont et éviter de ranimer une querelle ou un désagrément qui appartient au passé.
How do you pronounce "il ne faut pas réveiller le chat qui dort"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "il ne faut pas réveiller le chat qui dort" is \il nə fo pa ʁe.ve.je lə ʃa ki dɔʁ\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "il ne faut pas réveiller le chat qui dort" come from?
"il ne faut pas réveiller le chat qui dort" is a French word. PlainSpell covers definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
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 ne faut pas réveiller le chat qui dort”

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

  • The one correct French spelling is I-L- -N-E- -F-A-U-T- -P-A-S- -R-É-V-E-I-L-L-E-R- -L-E- -C-H-A-T- -Q-U-I- -D-O-R-T - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
  • Say it as \il nə fo pa ʁe.ve.je lə ʃa ki dɔʁ\ (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:

Explore PlainSpell

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