mal de mer
\mal də mɛʁ\
The verdict
“mal de mer” is uncommon French (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency French
- 10
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Nausée qui apparaît lors d’un déplacement en bateau.
Corpus desk
Index FR-mal-de-mer · mal de mer · French
mal de mer · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 10 letters
- VOW-3 3 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 de mer |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \mal də mɛʁ\ |
| Letters | 10 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « mal de mer » en français
Rare enough to double-check
mal de mer is uncommon French outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun, transcribed \mal də mɛʁ\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Nausée qui apparaît lors d’un déplacement en bateau.".
mal de mer doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, typically a sign the spelling maps closely to how the word sounds. This entry stands alone in our confusable dataset, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.
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 de mer, spelled M-A-L- -D-E- -M-E-R.
Definition
- 1Nausée qui apparaît lors d’un déplacement en bateau.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how mal de mer appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
[…] lorsque quelques soulèvemens d’estomac m’avertirent que je ne tarderais pas à payer mon tribut. Bientôt il me fallut descendre dans la cabine, et pendant près de trois heures je me trouvai en proie à toutes les horreurs du mal de mer.
on entre dans l’Océan ; la lame s’allonge en volutes irrégulières, les eaux changent de couleur, et les visages aussi. Les prédestinés à cette étrange maladie que l’on nomme le mal de mer commencent à rechercher les angles solitaires et s’accoudent mélancoliquement sur le bastingage.
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.