lettre de recommandation

/\lɛtʁ də ʁə.kɔ.mɑ̃.da.sjɔ̃\/ noun

The verdict

“lettre de recommandation” is outside the top-ranked French vocabulary, used as a noun — the kind of word writers most often double-check.

Unranked
below top-frequency French
24
letters

Dominant Wiktionary sense: Lettre écrite par une personne familière à une autre, habituellement un professeur, un employeur ou une personne avec une autorité similaire, évaluant et souvent vantant les mérites et l’aptitude d...

Key facts for lettre de recommandation
PropertyValue
Headwordlettre de recommandation
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\lɛtʁ də ʁə.kɔ.mɑ̃.da.sjɔ̃\
Letters24
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Where “lettre de recommandation” sits in French frequency

lettre de recommandation 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 lettre de recommandation is 24 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \lɛtʁ də ʁə.kɔ.mɑ̃.da.sjɔ̃\. It sits outside the most-frequent rank tiers, which is often why uncommon words generate more spelling variants per reader. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "Lettre écrite par une personne familière à une autre, habituellement un professeur, un employeur ou une personne avec une autorité similaire, évaluant et souvent vantant les mérites et l’aptitude d...".

No misspelling variants are generated for lettre de recommandation 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 lettre de recommandation, spelled L-E-T-T-R-E- -D-E- -R-E-C-O-M-M-A-N-D-A-T-I-O-N, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.

Definition

  1. 1
    Lettre écrite par une personne familière à une autre, habituellement un professeur, un employeur ou une personne avec une autorité similaire, évaluant et souvent vantant les mérites et l’aptitude de l’autre personne pour l’obtention d’un poste.

This word in other languages

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "lettre de recommandation"?
"lettre de recommandation" is spelled L-E-T-T-R-E- -D-E- -R-E-C-O-M-M-A-N-D-A-T-I-O-N. The IPA pronunciation is \lɛtʁ də ʁə.kɔ.mɑ̃.da.sjɔ̃\.
What does "lettre de recommandation" mean?
As a noun, "lettre de recommandation" means: Lettre écrite par une personne familière à une autre, habituellement un professeur, un employeur ou une personne avec une autorité similaire, évaluant et souvent vantant les mérites et l’aptitude d...
How do you pronounce "lettre de recommandation"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "lettre de recommandation" is \lɛtʁ də ʁə.kɔ.mɑ̃.da.sjɔ̃\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "lettre de recommandation" come from?
"lettre de recommandation" 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 “lettre de recommandation”

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

  • The one correct French spelling is L-E-T-T-R-E- -D-E- -R-E-C-O-M-M-A-N-D-A-T-I-O-N — every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
  • Say it as \lɛtʁ də ʁə.kɔ.mɑ̃.da.sjɔ̃\ (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 L in our French index:

Explore PlainSpell

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.