instiller

\ɛ̃s.ti.le\

/\ɛ̃s.ti.le\/ verb

The verdict

“instiller” is uncommon French (frequency #70,743 among 3,561 “I” headwords), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

#70,743
frequency rank, French
3,561
“I” headwords

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Faire couler, verser goutte à goutte.

Corpus desk

Index FR-instiller · instiller · French

instiller · rank #70,743 · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-RARE #70,743
  • LEN-LONG 9 letters
  • VOW-3 3 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-MID 3,561
  • PHOTO-FINISH inquiétais

Nearest frequency peer: inquiétais (-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 « instiller »

Bande clairsemée: les barres inversent le rang pour que le rare se lise plus court

corpus weight

What this shows Vue de longue queue: où « instiller » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026
Key facts for instiller
PropertyValue
Headwordinstiller
LanguageFrench
Part of speechVerb
IPA\ɛ̃s.ti.le\
Letters9
Frequency rank#70,743
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Longue queue: rang de « instiller » en français

La fréquence va de la poignée de mots du quotidien (gauche) à la longue queue presque jamais vue (droite).instillertombe dans cette queue de rareté:

#1#100#1K#10K#100K
← used constantlyrarely used →

L'échelle est logarithmique (chaque tic ≈ 10× plus rare). Voisins rares de la même bande: « inquiétais » (#70,742), « interallié » (#70,744), « innus » (#70,741). Parmi 3,561 lemmes en « I », « instiller » est au #70,743. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

instiller is uncommon French at frequency #70,743 among 3,561 “I” headwords, classed as averb, transcribed \ɛ̃s.ti.le\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 4 senses are on record.

We couldn't generate a plausible misspelling set for instiller, typically a sign the spelling maps closely to how the word sounds. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.

No documented word history exists for this headword, so its spelling is easiest to reason about phoneme by phoneme, absent a documented history. The correct French form is instiller, spelled I-N-S-T-I-L-L-E-R.

Definition

  1. 1
    Faire couler, verser goutte à goutte.
  2. 2
    Administrer une solution médicamenteuse à quelqu’un.
  3. 3
    Faire pénétrer progressivement une idée, un sentiment, etc dans l'esprit d'une personne.
  4. 4
    (pronominal) Pénétrer progressivement dans l'esprit d'une personne.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

These source excerpts show how instiller appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. Instiller quelques gouttes d’alcool dans une plaie.
  2. Perdre la foi n’est pas seulement une catastrophe spirituelle, mais un crime social, une perverse rébellion contre les traditions instillées dès le berceau.

Synonyms

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

How do you spell "instiller"?
"instiller" is spelled I-N-S-T-I-L-L-E-R. The IPA pronunciation is \ɛ̃s.ti.le\.
What does "instiller" mean?
As a verb, "instiller" means: Faire couler, verser goutte à goutte.
How do you pronounce "instiller"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "instiller" is \ɛ̃s.ti.le\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "instiller" come from?
"instiller" is a French word. PlainSpell's reference spans five languages -- English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German -- with definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for each.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Similar French words by spelling shape

Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "instiller", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked French headwords with 9 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list