machette
\ma.ʃɛt\
The verdict
“machette” is a moderately-common French word, ranked #28,639 in French word frequency and used as a noun.
- #28,639
- frequency rank, French
- 8
- letters
- 10
- tracked misspellings
- 7
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Long couteau muni d’une lame épaisse mesurant environ 40 centimètres de long et au manche court, servant généralement à se frayer un chemin dans les régions à végétation dense, à ouvrir des fruits ...
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | machette |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \ma.ʃɛt\ |
| Letters | 8 |
| Frequency rank | #28,639 |
| Misspellings tracked | 10 |
| Confusable pairs | 7 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “machette” sits in French frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The French entry for machette is 8 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \ma.ʃɛt\. Corpus data places it at rank #28,639 in overall French word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "Long couteau muni d’une lame épaisse mesurant environ 40 centimètres de long et au manche court, servant généralement à se frayer un chemin dans les régions à végétation dense, à ouvrir des fruits ...".
Our generated misspelling index lists 10 likely wrong-spelling variants for machette, with forms such as "amchette", "macchette", and "macehtte". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It also participates in 7 confusable-pair relationships, "manette", "maquette", "mallette", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
This entry's etymology isn't recorded, leaving phoneme-to-grapheme mapping as the best guide to its spelling rather than a borrowing history. The correct French form is machette, spelled M-A-C-H-E-T-T-E.
Definition
- 1Long couteau muni d’une lame épaisse mesurant environ 40 centimètres de long et au manche court, servant généralement à se frayer un chemin dans les régions à végétation dense, à ouvrir des fruits à coque dure comme la noix de coco, à tailler les feuilles de palmier, etc., aussi utilisé comme arme blanche.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: amchette,macchette,macehtte,machete,machetet,machhette,machtete,mahcette,mcahette,mmachette
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of machette - counted as single-character edits (an insertion, a deletion, or a substituted letter). The larger the bar, the easier the typo is to spot; one-edit slips are the ones that sneak past readers.
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
How do you spell "machette"?
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Using “machette”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct French spelling is M-A-C-H-E-T-T-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as \ma.ʃɛt\ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “manette” - see the side-by-side comparison. machette vs manette
- Browse more French words and confusable pairs in the same reference. French words
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.