incontinent
\ɛ̃.kɔ̃.ti.nɑ̃\
The verdict
“incontinent” is uncommon French (frequency #87,738 among 3,561 “I” headwords), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #87,738
- frequency rank, French
- 3,561
- “I” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Qui manque de continence, qui n’est pas chaste, qui ne sait pas se retenir.
Corpus desk
Index FR-incontinent · incontinent · French
incontinent · rank #87,738 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #87,738
- LEN-MEGA 11 letters
- VOW-4 4 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 3,561
- PHOTO-FINISH incommensurab…
Nearest frequency peer: incommensurables (-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 « incontinent »
Bande clairsemée: les barres inversent le rang pour que le rare se lise plus court
- impressionn…
impressionnait
12,266 corpus weight
- impétuosité
impétuosité
12,265 corpus weight
- incommensur…
incommensurables
12,264 corpus weight
- incontinent
incontinent
12,263 corpus weight
- inculpées
inculpées
12,262 corpus weight
- indemnisée
indemnisée
12,261 corpus weight
What this shows Vue de longue queue: où « incontinent » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | incontinent |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | \ɛ̃.kɔ̃.ti.nɑ̃\ |
| Letters | 11 |
| Frequency rank | #87,738 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « incontinent » en français
Rare enough to double-check
incontinent is uncommon French at frequency #87,738 among 3,561 “I” headwords, classed as anadjective, transcribed \ɛ̃.kɔ̃.ti.nɑ̃\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 3 senses are on record.
Zero misspellings are on record for incontinent in our index, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. Our dataset records no confusable match here, suggesting its spelling stands apart enough that readers rarely confuse it with something else.
No borrowing history is documented for this entry, 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 incontinent, spelled I-N-C-O-N-T-I-N-E-N-T.
Definition
- 1Qui manque de continence, qui n’est pas chaste, qui ne sait pas se retenir.
- 2Qui ne contrôle pas ou plus ses sphincters, qui ne peut retenir la miction ou la défécation.
- 3Qui ne se retient pas.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how incontinent appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Quelle leçon des dangers à trop songer aux sirènes attrayantes du monde de Charroux, que le moine incontinent et adultère pourrissant, emmuré, dans sa basse fosse.
Dans ma voiture, les incontinents restent debout, je tiens à mes sièges!
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 "incontinent", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked French headwords with 11 letters (nearest by frequency rank).