machette

\ma.ʃɛt\

/\ma.ʃɛt\/ noun

The verdict

“machette” has 10 generated spelling variants in the French index at frequency #28,639. The variants make it a useful spelling check.

#28,639
frequency rank, French
5,038
“M” headwords
10
tracked misspellings
7
confusable pairs

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 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 ...

Corpus desk

Index FR-machette · machette · French

machette · rank #28,639 · 10 variants · 7 confusables

  • FREQ-MID #28,639
  • LEN-LONG 8 letters
  • VOW-3 3 vowels
  • CONFUS-MID 7 pairs
  • VAR-MID 10 variants
  • BOOK-DENSE 5,038
  • PHOTO-FINISH légat

Nearest frequency peer: légat (-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.

Pairs de rang près de l'aimant d'erreurs « machette »

Même bande de rareté: utile si une faute tombe sur un lemme voisin

corpus weight

What this shows « machette » siège parmi ces pairs FrequencyWords; la profondeur des fautes est suivie à part dans le graphique d'édition.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026

Visual similarity to commonly confused words

How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).

machette vs manette
75% similar
machette vs maquette
75% similar
machette vs mallette
75% similar

Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).

Key facts for machette
PropertyValue
Headwordmachette
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\ma.ʃɛt\
Letters8
Frequency rank#28,639
Misspellings tracked10
Confusable pairs7
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Fréquence de l'aimant d'erreurs « machette »

De gauche à droite: le peu qui porte la parole quotidienne, puis la longue queue quasi invisible.machettese place ici:

#1#100#1K#10K#100K
← used constantlyrarely used →

L'axe est logarithmique: chaque tic marque environ dix fois moins de fréquence. Dans la même bande de rareté figurent « légat » (#28,638), « machinerie » (#28,640), « lyrics » (#28,637). Parmi 5,038 lemmes en « M », « machette » est au #28,639. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

A misspelling magnet

The generator records 10 spelling variants around machette (IPA \ma.ʃɛt\), anoun. Corpus frequency is #28,639 among 5,038 “M” headwords. Dominant gloss: "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

  1. 1
    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 à coque dure comme la noix de coco, à tailler les feuilles de palmier, etc., aussi utilisé comme arme blanche.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

These source excerpts show how machette appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. Nous avançons à la machette dans la bien nommée forêt impénétrable de Bwindi.
  2. Ces voyages étaient de véritables aventures et il convenait chaque fois de se préparer au pire en emportant pelles, haches, machettes, crics, tire-forts et surtout les inévitables "caisse-popote", "lit-picot" et moustiquaires, sans oublier un ou deux manœuvres. — (Bernard Le Doux, O Tangani, Liv’éditions, 1994)

Synonyms

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.

amchette2macchette1macehtte2machete1machetet2machhette1machtete2mahcette2
Edit distance from "machette"

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"?
"machette" is spelled M-A-C-H-E-T-T-E. The IPA pronunciation is \ma.ʃɛt\.
What does "machette" mean?
As a noun, "machette" means: 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 ...
What words are commonly confused with "machette"?
"machette" is commonly confused with "manette", "maquette", "mallette". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "machette"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "machette" is \ma.ʃɛt\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "machette" come from?
"machette" is a French word. PlainSpell's reference spans five languages -- English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German -- with definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for each.
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.

Similar French words by spelling shape

Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "machette", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked French headwords with 8 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

Similar misspelling depth

Headwords with a similar count of attested misspellings (10 here; floor ≥5).

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list