maigres comme des clous
\mɛɡʁ kɔm de klu\
The verdict
“maigres comme des clous” is outside the top-ranked French vocabulary, used as an adjective - the kind of word writers most often double-check.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency French
- 23
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) — Pluriel de maigre comme un clou.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | maigres comme des clous |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | \mɛɡʁ kɔm de klu\ |
| Letters | 23 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “maigres comme des clous” sits in French frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The French entry for maigres comme des clous is 23 letters long, classified as an adjective, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \mɛɡʁ kɔm de klu\. It sits outside the most-frequent rank tiers, which is often why uncommon words generate more spelling variants per reader. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "Pluriel de maigre comme un clou.".
No misspelling variants are generated for maigres comme des clous in our index, suggesting the orthography follows predictable French patterns. 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 maigres comme des clous, spelled M-A-I-G-R-E-S- -C-O-M-M-E- -D-E-S- -C-L-O-U-S, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1Pluriel de maigre comme un clou.
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.
Cite this page
Free to reuse with attribution (CC BY-SA). Copy the citation:
PlainSpell, “maigres comme des clous, French word data” (May 6, 2026). Derived from Wiktionary (kaikki.org, CC BY-SA) and an open word-frequency list. https://plainspell.com/fr/mot/maigres-comme-des-clous
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “maigres comme des clous”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct French spelling is M-A-I-G-R-E-S- -C-O-M-M-E- -D-E-S- -C-L-O-U-S - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as \mɛɡʁ kɔm de klu\ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Browse more French words and confusable pairs in the same reference. French words
Nearby French words
Other entries that begin with the letter M in our French index: