improprement
\ɛ̃.pʁɔ.pʁə.mɑ̃\
The verdict
“improprement” is uncommon French (frequency #57,326 among 3,561 “I” headwords), classed as an adverb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #57,326
- frequency rank, French
- 3,561
- “I” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - D’une manière impropre, en parlant du langage.
Corpus desk
Index FR-improprement · improprement · French
improprement · rank #57,326 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #57,326
- LEN-MEGA 12 letters
- VOW-4 4 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 3,561
- PHOTO-FINISH immoraux
Nearest frequency peer: immoraux (-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 « improprement »
Bande clairsemée: les barres inversent le rang pour que le rare se lise plus court
- imitée
imitée
42,678 corpus weight
- immoraux
immoraux
42,676 corpus weight
- improprement
improprement
42,675 corpus weight
- inachevés
inachevés
42,674 corpus weight
- inaltérable
inaltérable
42,673 corpus weight
- inchangées
inchangées
42,672 corpus weight
What this shows Vue de longue queue: où « improprement » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | improprement |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Adverb |
| IPA | \ɛ̃.pʁɔ.pʁə.mɑ̃\ |
| Letters | 12 |
| Frequency rank | #57,326 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « improprement » en français
Rare enough to double-check
improprement is uncommon French at frequency #57,326 among 3,561 “I” headwords, classed as anadverb, transcribed \ɛ̃.pʁɔ.pʁə.mɑ̃\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "D’une manière impropre, en parlant du langage.".
improprement has no tracked misspelling variants, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable French rules. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.
This headword's origin isn't recorded in our source data, so its spelling is easiest to reason about phoneme by phoneme, absent a documented history. The correct French form is improprement, spelled I-M-P-R-O-P-R-E-M-E-N-T.
Definition
- 1D’une manière impropre, en parlant du langage.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how improprement appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Beaucoup des tripolis et des randanites (ou Kieselguhr), dites souvent improprement « terres d'Infusoires », qui sont employées dans l'industrie, se sont ainsi formés autrefois dans les lacs de notre pays d'Auvergne, […].
C'est alors [par les casuistes] que l’on sut qu’on peut pour une pomme, Sans blesser la justice, assassiner un homme ; Assassiner ! ah ! non, je parle improprement […]
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); 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 "improprement", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked French headwords with 12 letters (nearest by frequency rank).