ill-gotten gains
\ˈɪl.ˈɡɒt.ən ɡeɪnz\
The verdict
“ill-gotten gains” is outside the top-ranked French vocabulary, used as a noun - the kind of word writers most often double-check.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency French
- 16
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) — Argent sale.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | ill-gotten gains |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \ˈɪl.ˈɡɒt.ən ɡeɪnz\ |
| Letters | 16 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “ill-gotten gains” sits in French frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The French entry for ill-gotten gains is 16 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \ˈɪl.ˈɡɒt.ən ɡeɪnz\. 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: "Argent sale.".
No misspelling variants are generated for ill-gotten gains 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 ill-gotten gains, spelled I-L-L---G-O-T-T-E-N- -G-A-I-N-S, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1Argent sale.
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, “ill-gotten gains, 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/ill-gotten-gains
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you spell "ill-gotten gains"?
What does "ill-gotten gains" mean?
How do you pronounce "ill-gotten gains"?
What language does "ill-gotten gains" come from?
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Using “ill-gotten gains”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct French spelling is I-L-L---G-O-T-T-E-N- -G-A-I-N-S - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as \ˈɪl.ˈɡɒt.ən ɡeɪnz\ (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: