kanji

\kan.ʒi\

/\kan.ʒi\/ noun

The verdict

“kanji” is uncommon French (frequency #56,697 among 737 “K” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

#56,697
frequency rank, French
737
“K” headwords

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Sinogramme utilisé en écriture japonaise.

Corpus desk

Index FR-kanji · kanji · French

kanji · rank #56,697 · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-RARE #56,697
  • LEN-MID 5 letters
  • VOW-2 2 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-MID 737
  • PHOTO-FINISH kaito

Nearest frequency peer: kaito (-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 « kanji »

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 « kanji » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026
Key facts for kanji
PropertyValue
Headwordkanji
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\kan.ʒi\
Letters5
Frequency rank#56,697
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Longue queue: rang de « kanji » en français

Cette échelle va du noyau du français courant (gauche) jusqu'à la traîne des formes rares (droite).kanjitombe dans cette queue de rareté:

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

L'axe est logarithmique: chaque tic marque environ dix fois moins de fréquence. Voisins rares de la même bande: « kaito » (#56,696), « Kearney » (#56,698), « Juanita » (#56,694). Parmi 737 lemmes en « K », « kanji » est au #56,697. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

kanji is uncommon French at frequency #56,697 among 737 “K” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed \kan.ʒi\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Sinogramme utilisé en écriture japonaise.".

Zero misspellings are on record for kanji in our index, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. 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.

This entry's etymology isn't recorded, leaving phoneme-to-grapheme mapping as the best guide to its spelling rather than a borrowing history. The correct French form is kanji, spelled K-A-N-J-I.

Definition

  1. 1
    Sinogramme utilisé en écriture japonaise.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

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

  1. Indubitablement, la langue japonaise est d’une très grande difficulté. En premier lieu, elle comporte quatre systèmes d’écriture : les caractères idéographiques chinois (kanji), en nombre pratiquement indéfini (plusieurs milliers pour l’usage courant) ; deux systèmes phonétiques (syllabiques) indigènes, totalement différents, les hiragana et les katakana…
  2. Les kanji sont classés dans les dictionnaires selon leur clef, et sous une même clef ils sont rangés en fonction du nombre de traits supplémentaires.

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 "kanji"?
"kanji" is spelled K-A-N-J-I. The IPA pronunciation is \kan.ʒi\.
What does "kanji" mean?
As a noun, "kanji" means: Sinogramme utilisé en écriture japonaise.
How do you pronounce "kanji"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "kanji" is \kan.ʒi\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "kanji" come from?
"kanji" is a French word. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for this and other words across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German on PlainSpell.
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 "kanji", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked French headwords with 5 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list