lancinant
\lɑ̃.si.nɑ̃\
The verdict
“lancinant” is uncommon French (frequency #75,834 among 2,567 “L” headwords), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #75,834
- frequency rank, French
- 2,567
- “L” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Qui se fait sentir par élancements. Il n’est guère usité que dans cette locution.
Corpus desk
Index FR-lancinant · lancinant · French
lancinant · rank #75,834 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #75,834
- LEN-LONG 9 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 2,567
- PHOTO-FINISH lamp
Nearest frequency peer: lamp (-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 « lancinant »
Bande clairsemée: les barres inversent le rang pour que le rare se lise plus court
- lak
lak
24,170 corpus weight
- laminage
laminage
24,169 corpus weight
- lamp
lamp
24,168 corpus weight
- lancinant
lancinant
24,167 corpus weight
- latter
latter
24,165 corpus weight
- Lauer
Lauer
24,164 corpus weight
What this shows Vue de longue queue: où « lancinant » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | lancinant |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | \lɑ̃.si.nɑ̃\ |
| Letters | 9 |
| Frequency rank | #75,834 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « lancinant » en français
Rare enough to double-check
lancinant is uncommon French at frequency #75,834 among 2,567 “L” headwords, classed as anadjective, transcribed \lɑ̃.si.nɑ̃\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
We couldn't generate a plausible misspelling set for lancinant, 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, which typically means the spelling is too distinctive to be mistaken for another word.
Wiktionary doesn't record an etymology for this headword, so any spelling logic here comes from how the word's sounds map to letters, not a documented origin story. The correct French form is lancinant, spelled L-A-N-C-I-N-A-N-T.
Definition
- 1Qui se fait sentir par élancements. Il n’est guère usité que dans cette locution.
- 2Qui taraude l’esprit ; obsédant.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how lancinant appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
J’avais une tension musculaire lancinante à l’épaule qui ne me quittait plus depuis plusieurs jours et je sentais que j’avais vraiment besoin de me détendre, ne serait-ce qu’une soirée.
Les efforts inaccoutumés et excessifs imposés par Alphonse ne pouvaient rester sans conséquence, et le résultat ne s’est pas fait attendre, sous la forme de douleurs lancinantes qui ne me quittent plus.
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
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Similar French words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "lancinant", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked French headwords with 9 letters (nearest by frequency rank).