maigres comme un clou
\mɛɡʁ kɔ.m‿œ̃ klu\
The verdict
“maigres comme un clou” 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
- 21
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) — Pluriel de maigre comme un clou.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | maigres comme un clou |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | \mɛɡʁ kɔ.m‿œ̃ klu\ |
| Letters | 21 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “maigres comme un clou” sits in French frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The French entry for maigres comme un clou is 21 letters long, classified as an adjective, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \mɛɡʁ kɔ.m‿œ̃ 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 un clou 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 un clou, spelled M-A-I-G-R-E-S- -C-O-M-M-E- -U-N- -C-L-O-U, 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 un clou, 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-un-clou
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “maigres comme un clou”
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- -U-N- -C-L-O-U - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as \mɛɡʁ kɔ.m‿œ̃ 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: