laid comme une chenille
\lɛ kɔ.m‿yn ʃə.nij\
The verdict
“laid comme une chenille” is uncommon French (outside the top frequency list), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency French
- 23
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Très laid, repoussant.
Corpus desk
Index FR-laid-comme-une-chenille · laid comme une chenille · French
laid comme une chenille · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 23 letters
- VOW-9 9 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "L" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
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.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | laid comme une chenille |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | \lɛ kɔ.m‿yn ʃə.nij\ |
| Letters | 23 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « laid comme une chenille » en français
Rare enough to double-check
laid comme une chenille is uncommon French outside the top frequency list, classed as anadjective, transcribed \lɛ kɔ.m‿yn ʃə.nij\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Très laid, repoussant.".
Zero misspellings are on record for laid comme une chenille in our index, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. This entry stands alone in our confusable dataset, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.
This headword's origin isn't recorded in our source data, so its spelling is easiest to reason about phoneme by phoneme, absent a documented history. The correct French form is laid comme une chenille, spelled L-A-I-D- -C-O-M-M-E- -U-N-E- -C-H-E-N-I-L-L-E.
Definition
- 1Très laid, repoussant.
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how laid comme une chenille appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Il avoit le malheur (car c’en est un lorsqu’on a le goût des femmes), il avoit le analheur, dis-je, d’être laid comme une chenille, négligé comme un mari, fat comme un amant heureux, & bourru comme un bel esprit gâté.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.