imprimatur
\ɛ̃.pʁi.ma.tyʁ\
The verdict
“imprimatur” is uncommon French (frequency #98,081 among 3,561 “I” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #98,081
- frequency rank, French
- 3,561
- “I” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Autorisation donnée par un évêque, un recteur d’université d’imprimer un ouvrage.
Corpus desk
Index FR-imprimatur · imprimatur · French
imprimatur · rank #98,081 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #98,081
- LEN-MEGA 10 letters
- VOW-4 4 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 3,561
- PHOTO-FINISH imprimait
Nearest frequency peer: imprimait (-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.
Rangs de longue queue près de « imprimatur »
Bande clairsemée: les barres inversent le rang pour que le rare se lise plus court
- impassibili…
impassibilité
1,923 corpus weight
- imprimait
imprimait
1,921 corpus weight
- imprimatur
imprimatur
1,920 corpus weight
- incitées
incitées
1,919 corpus weight
- incolores
incolores
1,918 corpus weight
- indescripti…
indescriptibles
1,917 corpus weight
What this shows Vue de longue queue: où « imprimatur » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | imprimatur |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \ɛ̃.pʁi.ma.tyʁ\ |
| Letters | 10 |
| Frequency rank | #98,081 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « imprimatur » en français
Rare enough to double-check
imprimatur is uncommon French at frequency #98,081 among 3,561 “I” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed \ɛ̃.pʁi.ma.tyʁ\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 4 senses are on record.
No misspelling variants are generated for imprimatur in our index, suggesting the orthography follows predictable French patterns. This headword has no recorded confusable partner, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.
This entry carries no recorded etymology, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. The correct French form is imprimatur, spelled I-M-P-R-I-M-A-T-U-R.
Definition
- 1Autorisation donnée par un évêque, un recteur d’université d’imprimer un ouvrage.
- 2Accord pour publier un ouvrage.
- 3Autorisation officielle.
- 4Approbation.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how imprimatur appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Deux moines ont donné le nihil obstat, un prêtre et un abbé l’imprimatur.
Au retour des dernières épreuves avant BAT, j'ai vu qu'elle avait encore rétabli des pétouilles que j'avais pourtant annulées lors des premières navettes, mais j'ai quand même donné mon imprimatur pour ne pas passer pour un emmerdeur […].
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
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Similar French words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "imprimatur", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked French headwords with 10 letters (nearest by frequency rank).