lieutenant

/\ljøt.nɑ̃\/ noun

Letters

10 characters

Frequency Rank

#2,523

in French word usage

Misspellings

14

tracked variants

Confusables

1

similar word pairs

lieutenant is aFrenchnoun. It means: Celui qui est immédiatement au-dessous d’un chef, qu’il supplée dans certains cas. Pronounced \ljøt.nɑ̃\. It ranks #2,523 in French word frequency. Often confused with lieutenants.

Key facts for lieutenant
PropertyValue
Headwordlieutenant
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\ljøt.nɑ̃\
Letters10
Frequency rank#2,523
Misspellings tracked14
Confusable pairs1
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Frequency rank visualization

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

Source: Wordfreq corpus

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

The French entry for lieutenant is 10 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \ljøt.nɑ̃\. Corpus data places it at rank #2,523 in overall French word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 7 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.

Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 14 documented wrong-spelling variants for lieutenant, with forms such as "ileutenant", "leiutenant", and "lietuenant". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 1 confusable-pair relationship, "lieutenants", where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.

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 lieutenant, spelled L-I-E-U-T-E-N-A-N-T, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.

Definition

  1. 1
    Celui qui est immédiatement au-dessous d’un chef, qu’il supplée dans certains cas.
  2. 2
    Grade donné à un officier subalterne. En France, dans l’armée de terre, l’armée de l’air et la gendarmerie nationale, il est situé entre son supérieur hiérarchique, le capitaine, et son subordonné, le sous-lieutenant. Ce grade correspond à celui d’enseigne de vaisseau de première classe (non pas de lieutenant de vaisseau) dans la Marine nationale française.
  3. 3
    Grade existant dans un corps policier. Il peut être fédéral, provincial ou municipal.
  4. 4
    Grade d’officiers de services civils.
  5. 5
    Celui à qui le souverain déléguait dans certains cas une part de son autorité.
  6. 6
    Auxiliaire.
  7. 7
    Grade d’officier des Forces armées canadiennes.

This word in other languages

Common misspellings

Also misspelled as: ileutenant,leiutenant,lietuenant,lieuetnant,lieuteannt,lieutenannt,lieutenantt,lieutenatn,lieutennant,lieutennat,lieutneant,lieuttenant,liuetenant,llieutenant

Misspelling Pattern Breakdown

Relative frequency of common misspelling types for lieutenant

Misspelling Variants of "lieutenant"

ileutenant10leiutenant10lietuenant10lieuetnant10lieuteannt10lieutenannt11lieutenantt11lieutenatn10
Misspelling Variants of "lieutenant"

Frequency rank: #2,523 in French

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "lieutenant"?
"lieutenant" is spelled L-I-E-U-T-E-N-A-N-T. The IPA pronunciation is \ljøt.nɑ̃\.
What does "lieutenant" mean?
As a noun, "lieutenant" means: Celui qui est immédiatement au-dessous d’un chef, qu’il supplée dans certains cas.
What words are commonly confused with "lieutenant"?
"lieutenant" is commonly confused with "lieutenants". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "lieutenant"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "lieutenant" is \ljøt.nɑ̃\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "lieutenant" come from?
"lieutenant" 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.