madam

/\ˈmæd.əm\/ noun

Letters

5 characters

Frequency Rank

#72,516

in French word usage

Misspellings

0

tracked variants

Confusables

0

similar word pairs

madam is aFrenchnoun. It means: Madame. Formule d’appel à une femme, utilisé seul (équivalent féminin de sir) ou avec un titre de fonction (équivalent de Mr. dans ce contexte). Pronounced \ˈmæd.əm\.

Key facts for madam
PropertyValue
Headwordmadam
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\ˈmæd.əm\
Letters5
Frequency rank#72,516
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Frequency rank visualization

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

Source: Wordfreq corpus

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

The French entry for madam is 5 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \ˈmæd.əm\. Corpus data places it at rank #72,516 in overall French word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it.Wiktionary records 4 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.

No frequent misspelling variants are recorded for madam 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 madam, spelled M-A-D-A-M, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.

Definition

  1. 1
    Madame. Formule d’appel à une femme, utilisé seul (équivalent féminin de sir) ou avec un titre de fonction (équivalent de Mr. dans ce contexte).
  2. 2
    Maîtresse de maison.
  3. 3
    Fille vaniteuse ou querelleuse.
  4. 4
    Mère maquerelle.

Synonyms

Frequency rank: #72,516 in French

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "madam"?
"madam" is spelled M-A-D-A-M. The IPA pronunciation is \ˈmæd.əm\.
What does "madam" mean?
As a noun, "madam" means: Madame. Formule d’appel à une femme, utilisé seul (équivalent féminin de sir) ou avec un titre de fonction (équivalent de Mr. dans ce contexte).
How do you pronounce "madam"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "madam" is \ˈmæd.əm\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "madam" come from?
"madam" 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 M in our French index:

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Data Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Frequency data from Wordfreq. Misspellings derived from Hunspell dictionaries.