lichen

/\li.kɛn\/ noun

Letters

6 characters

Frequency Rank

#51,575

in French word usage

Misspellings

0

tracked variants

Confusables

0

similar word pairs

lichen is aFrenchnoun. It means: Organisme composite résultant de la symbiose entre au moins un champignon hétérotrophe appelé mycobionte et des cellules microscopiques possédant de la chlorophylle (algue verte ou cyanobactérie au... Pronounced \li.kɛn\.

Key facts for lichen
PropertyValue
Headwordlichen
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\li.kɛn\
Letters6
Frequency rank#51,575
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Frequency rank visualization

Position of lichen in French word frequency (lower rank = more common)

Source: Wordfreq corpus

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

The French entry for lichen is 6 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \li.kɛn\. Corpus data places it at rank #51,575 in overall French word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it.Wiktionary records 3 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.

No frequent misspelling variants are recorded for lichen in our index, suggesting the orthography either follows predictable French patterns or the word is uncommon enough that typo corpora lack signal.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 lichen, spelled L-I-C-H-E-N, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.

Definition

  1. 1
    Organisme composite résultant de la symbiose entre au moins un champignon hétérotrophe appelé mycobionte et des cellules microscopiques possédant de la chlorophylle (algue verte ou cyanobactérie autotrophe pour le carbone) nommées « photobiontes ».
  2. 2
    Organisme utilisé dans la pharmacopée traditionnelle.
  3. 3
    Maladie de la peau ou des muqueuses ainsi nommée à cause de sa ressemblance avec l’organisme résultant de la symbiose d’un champignon et d’une algue.

Synonyms

This word in other languages

Frequency rank: #51,575 in French

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "lichen"?
"lichen" is spelled L-I-C-H-E-N. The IPA pronunciation is \li.kɛn\.
What does "lichen" mean?
As a noun, "lichen" means: Organisme composite résultant de la symbiose entre au moins un champignon hétérotrophe appelé mycobionte et des cellules microscopiques possédant de la chlorophylle (algue verte ou cyanobactérie au...
How do you pronounce "lichen"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "lichen" is \li.kɛn\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "lichen" come from?
"lichen" 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.

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. Frequency data from Wordfreq. Misspellings derived from Hunspell dictionaries.