imam
\i.mam\
The verdict
“imam” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #12,982) as a noun. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.
- #12,982
- frequency rank, French
- 3,561
- “I” headwords
- 4
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Guide de la communauté dans la religion musulmane.
Corpus desk
Index FR-imam · imam · French
imam · rank #12,982 · 4 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-MID #12,982
- LEN-MID 4 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-LOW 4 variants
- BOOK-MID 3,561
- PHOTO-FINISH illégales
Nearest frequency peer: illégales (-1 rank slots)
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.
Voisins de fréquence du confusable « imam »
Pairs de poids proche dans le corpus, séparés des confusables ci-dessous
- hybrides
hybrides
87,022 corpus weight
- hélicoptères
hélicoptères
87,021 corpus weight
- illégales
illégales
87,020 corpus weight
- imam
imam
87,019 corpus weight
- impatient
impatient
87,018 corpus weight
- inattendue
inattendue
87,017 corpus weight
What this shows Les barres placent « imam » face aux lemmes français les plus proches par rang, pas un reprint du bureau des confusables.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | imam |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \i.mam\ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #12,982 |
| Misspellings tracked | 4 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Rang de corpus près des confusables de « imam »
Easy to mix with look-alikes
The spelling risk for imam is neighbouring look-alikes ("ira", "imp", …), not just typos; it is anoun pronounced \i.mam\. Frequency #12,982 among 3,561 “I” headwords. 3 recorded senses keep meaning in play.
Our generated misspelling index lists 4 likely wrong-spelling variants for imam, with forms such as "iamm", "imamm", and "imma". Each of these forms differs from the correct spelling by one small edit: a doubled letter, a dropped silent letter, or a substituted vowel. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "ira", "imp", "IRM", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
This headword's origin isn't recorded in our source data, so its spelling is best explained by sound-to-letter mapping rather than etymology. The correct French form is imam, spelled I-M-A-M.
Definition
- 1Guide de la communauté dans la religion musulmane.
- 2Guide spirituel et temporel.
- 3Religieux qui dirige la prière en commun chez les musulmans.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how imam appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Un oratoire (msalla), simple mur en maçonnerie blanchi à la chaux, avait été construit à la hâte sur une colline voisine, toute blanche de pâquerettes. Et c’est là, hier matin, premier choûal, que le Sultan s’est rendu en grande pompe pour remplir ses fonctions d’imâm, de souverain pontife, et y faire la prière à la tête de sa cour et de son armée.
Nous rentrâmes ensuite dans Athènes (…). Je fus réveillé tout à coup par le tambourin et la musette turque, dont les sons discordants partaient des combles des Propylées. En même temps un prêtre turc se mit à chanter en arabe l’heure passée à des chrétiens de la ville de Minerve. Je ne saurais peindre ce que j’éprouvai : cet iman n’avait pas besoin de me…
Synonyms
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as:
- iamm
- imamm
- imma
- immam
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of imam - expressed in single-character edits (insert, delete, or swap one letter). Bigger bars stand out at a glance; a one-edit slip is the hardest to catch.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 French corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you spell "imam"?
What does "imam" mean?
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Similar French words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "imam", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked French headwords with 4 letters (nearest by frequency rank).