machin-chose
\ma.ʃɛ̃.ʃoz\
The verdict
“machin-chose” is uncommon French (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency French
- 12
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Mot utilisé quand on ne connait pas le nom d’une personne.
Corpus desk
Index FR-machin-chose · machin-chose · French
machin-chose · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 12 letters
- VOW-4 4 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "M" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
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.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | machin-chose |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \ma.ʃɛ̃.ʃoz\ |
| Letters | 12 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « machin-chose » en français
Rare enough to double-check
machin-chose is uncommon French outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun, transcribed \ma.ʃɛ̃.ʃoz\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
machin-chose doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, a sign its spelling follows regular French conventions. No confusable counterpart is on file for this word, since its spelling is unusual enough that it doesn't cluster with a lookalike.
This headword's origin isn't recorded in our source data, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. The correct French form is machin-chose, spelled M-A-C-H-I-N---C-H-O-S-E.
Definition
- 1Mot utilisé quand on ne connait pas le nom d’une personne.
- 2Mot utilisé quand on ne connait pas le nom d’une chose incongrue.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how machin-chose appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
– Où est votre détective ? Celia Machin-Chose ?
Donne-le à faire à Machin-Chose, le nouveau, dans ton service.
Synonyms
This word in other languages
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.