jamais
\ʒa.mɛ\
The verdict
“jamais” has 8 generated spelling variants in the French index at frequency #116. The variants make it a useful spelling check.
- #116
- frequency rank, French
- 957
- “J” headwords
- 8
- tracked misspellings
- 9
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - En un temps quelconque, futur ou hypothétique.
Corpus desk
Index FR-jamais · jamais · French
jamais · rank #116 · 8 variants · 9 confusables
- FREQ-CORE #116
- LEN-LONG 6 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-MID 9 pairs
- VAR-MID 8 variants
- BOOK-MID 957
- PHOTO-FINISH sous
Nearest frequency peer: sous (-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.
Frequency neighbourhood for “jamais”
Lower corpus rank = more everyday usage (inverted bar length for readability)
- donc
donc
99,888 corpus weight
- notre
notre
99,887 corpus weight
- sous
sous
99,886 corpus weight
- jamais
jamais
99,885 corpus weight
- vie
vie
99,884 corpus weight
- moins
moins
99,883 corpus weight
What this shows Bars show where “jamais” sits against the nearest ranked French headwords in the FrequencyWords band, not a reprint of letter-browse containment.
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 | jamais |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Adverb |
| IPA | \ʒa.mɛ\ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #116 |
| Misspellings tracked | 8 |
| Confusable pairs | 9 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Où “jamais” se place dans la fréquence du français
A misspelling magnet
The generator records 8 spelling variants around jamais (IPA \ʒa.mɛ\), anadverb. Corpus frequency is #116 among 957 “J” headwords. Wiktionary lists 5 senses, so context still picks the gloss.
Our generated misspelling index lists 8 likely wrong-spelling variants for jamais, with forms such as "ajmais", "jaamis", and "jamaiss". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It also participates in 9 confusable-pair relationships, "James", "Jamie", "jamal", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
No explicit etymology string is stored 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 jamais, spelled J-A-M-A-I-S.
Definition
- 1En un temps quelconque, futur ou hypothétique.
- 2En nul temps, à aucune occasion, en aucune façon — Note d’usage : Se rencontre combiné avec la particule négative ne (sauf, en réponse à une question, où son omission est de règle).
- 3En nul temps, à aucune occasion, en aucune façon — Note d’usage : Se rencontre combiné avec la particule négative ne (sauf, en réponse à une question, où son omission est de règle).
- 4En nul temps, à aucune occasion, en aucune façon — Note d’usage : Se rencontre combiné avec la particule négative ne (sauf, en réponse à une question, où son omission est de règle).
- 5En nul temps, à aucune occasion, en aucune façon — Note d’usage : Se rencontre combiné avec la particule négative ne (sauf, en réponse à une question, où son omission est de règle).
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how jamais appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Quant à ce dernier, nous ne comptions guère le rejoindre jamais, bien que j’eusse une lueur d’espérance que le capitaine Robson ferait un effort pour nous délivrer.
[…] la jeune comtesse avait déclaré qu’elle préférait entrer dans un couvent plutôt que d’être jamais la femme du comte de Ravenstein.
Synonyms
Antonyms
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as:
- ajmais
- jaamis
- jamaiss
- jamasi
- jamias
- jammais
- jjamais
- jmaais
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of jamais - measured in single-character edits (insert, delete, or substitute a letter). Larger bars are easier to catch; one-edit slips are the sneakiest.
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 "jamais"?
What does "jamais" mean?
What words are commonly confused with "jamais"?
How do you pronounce "jamais"?
What language does "jamais" come from?
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Similar French words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "jamais", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked French headwords with 6 letters (nearest by frequency rank).
Similar misspelling depth
Headwords with a similar count of attested misspellings (8 here; floor ≥5).
What to do next
You've looked up "jamais". Here's where to go from here.
- "jamais" maps to 9 confusable pairs in this vintage; the highest-scored is "James". View pair
- 8 edit-distance misspelling variants are generated for spell-check research on this headword. See variants
- Usage frequency rank #116 among French headwords in this corpus. Corpus statistics
- Browse more French words in the "J" letter cohort. J–Z browse
PlainSpell is a reference corpus, not spelling advice. Verify unusual forms in context.
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.