mal à propos
\ma.l‿a pʁɔ.po\
The verdict
“mal à propos” is uncommon French (outside the top frequency list), classed as an adverb. 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) - Sans raison ; sans sujet.
Corpus desk
Index FR-mal-a-propos · mal à propos · French
mal à propos · 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 | mal à propos |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Adverb |
| IPA | \ma.l‿a pʁɔ.po\ |
| Letters | 12 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « mal à propos » en français
Rare enough to double-check
mal à propos is uncommon French outside the top frequency list, classed as anadverb, transcribed \ma.l‿a pʁɔ.po\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Sans raison ; sans sujet.".
The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for mal à propos, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. We don't track a confusable pairing for this entry, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
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 mal à propos, spelled M-A-L- -À- -P-R-O-P-O-S.
Definition
- 1Sans raison ; sans sujet.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how mal à propos appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Vous déprisez mal à propos ma calèche, Trésor des Fèves, reprit Fleur des Pois. On y voyage très commodément quand elle est ouverte.
Lucien Leuwen avait été chassé de l’École Polytechnique pour s’être allé promener mal à propos, un jour qu’il était consigné, ainsi que tous ses camarades : c’était à l’époque d’une des célèbres journées de juin, avril ou février 1832 ou 1834.
Synonyms
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.