jeter le bébé avec l’eau du bain

/\ʒə.te lə be.be a.vɛk l‿o dy bɛ̃\/ verb

The verdict

“jeter le bébé avec l’eau du bain” is outside the top-ranked French vocabulary, used as a verb — the kind of word writers most often double-check.

Unranked
below top-frequency French
32
letters

Dominant Wiktionary sense: Ne pas prendre la peine de séparer le bon du mauvais et tout jeter.

Key facts for jeter le bébé avec l’eau du bain
PropertyValue
Headwordjeter le bébé avec l’eau du bain
LanguageFrench
Part of speechVerb
IPA\ʒə.te lə be.be a.vɛk l‿o dy bɛ̃\
Letters32
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Where “jeter le bébé avec l’eau du bain” sits in French frequency

jeter le bébé avec l’eau du bain falls outside the top-100,000 ranked French words — the long-tail zone of technical, archaic, or low-frequency vocabulary, exactly where readers second-guess spellings most.

Beyond rank #100,000. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

The French entry for jeter le bébé avec l’eau du bain is 32 letters long, classified as a verb, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \ʒə.te lə be.be a.vɛk l‿o dy bɛ̃\. It sits outside the most-frequent rank tiers, which is often why uncommon words generate more spelling variants per reader. Wiktionary records 2 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.

No misspelling variants are generated for jeter le bébé avec l’eau du bain in our index, suggesting the orthography follows predictable French patterns. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.

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. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct French form is jeter le bébé avec l’eau du bain, spelled J-E-T-E-R- -L-E- -B-É-B-É- -A-V-E-C- -L-’-E-A-U- -D-U- -B-A-I-N, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.

Definition

  1. 1
    Ne pas prendre la peine de séparer le bon du mauvais et tout jeter.
  2. 2
    Pécher par excès de zèle ; perdre de vue l’essentiel.

Antonyms

This word in other languages

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "jeter le bébé avec l’eau du bain"?
"jeter le bébé avec l’eau du bain" is spelled J-E-T-E-R- -L-E- -B-É-B-É- -A-V-E-C- -L-’-E-A-U- -D-U- -B-A-I-N. The IPA pronunciation is \ʒə.te lə be.be a.vɛk l‿o dy bɛ̃\.
What does "jeter le bébé avec l’eau du bain" mean?
As a verb, "jeter le bébé avec l’eau du bain" means: Ne pas prendre la peine de séparer le bon du mauvais et tout jeter.
How do you pronounce "jeter le bébé avec l’eau du bain"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "jeter le bébé avec l’eau du bain" is \ʒə.te lə be.be a.vɛk l‿o dy bɛ̃\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "jeter le bébé avec l’eau du bain" come from?
"jeter le bébé avec l’eau du bain" is a French word. PlainSpell covers definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German.
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.

Using “jeter le bébé avec l’eau du bain”

The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.

  • The one correct French spelling is J-E-T-E-R- -L-E- -B-É-B-É- -A-V-E-C- -L-’-E-A-U- -D-U- -B-A-I-N — every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
  • Say it as \ʒə.te lə be.be a.vɛk l‿o dy bɛ̃\ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
  • Browse more French words and confusable pairs in the same reference. French words

Nearby French words

Other entries that begin with the letter J in our French index:

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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.