maléfice
\ma.le.fis\
The verdict
“maléfice” is uncommon French (frequency #69,219 among 5,038 “M” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #69,219
- frequency rank, French
- 5,038
- “M” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Action par laquelle on est censé causer du mal, soit aux hommes, soit aux animaux et aux fruits de la terre, en employant des moyens cachés et surnaturels.
Corpus desk
Index FR-malefice · maléfice · French
maléfice · rank #69,219 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #69,219
- LEN-LONG 8 letters
- VOW-4 4 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 5,038
- PHOTO-FINISH malfaisante
Nearest frequency peer: malfaisante (-1 rank slots)
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.
Rangs de longue queue près de « maléfice »
Bande clairsemée: les barres inversent le rang pour que le rare se lise plus court
- maha
maha
30,785 corpus weight
- maio
maio
30,784 corpus weight
- malfaisante
malfaisante
30,783 corpus weight
- maléfice
maléfice
30,782 corpus weight
- Mannschaft
Mannschaft
30,781 corpus weight
- marginalisée
marginalisée
30,779 corpus weight
What this shows Vue de longue queue: où « maléfice » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | maléfice |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \ma.le.fis\ |
| Letters | 8 |
| Frequency rank | #69,219 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « maléfice » en français
Rare enough to double-check
maléfice is uncommon French at frequency #69,219 among 5,038 “M” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed \ma.le.fis\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Action par laquelle on est censé causer du mal, soit aux hommes, soit aux animaux et aux fruits de la terre, en employant des moyens cachés et surnaturels.".
Zero misspellings are on record for maléfice in our index, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable French rules. Our dataset records no confusable match here, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.
No documented word history exists for this headword, so its spelling is best explained by sound-to-letter mapping rather than etymology. The correct French form is maléfice, spelled M-A-L-É-F-I-C-E.
Definition
- 1Action par laquelle on est censé causer du mal, soit aux hommes, soit aux animaux et aux fruits de la terre, en employant des moyens cachés et surnaturels.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how maléfice appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Il a rapporté un maléfice et l’a utilisé contre Bassékou.
On avait senti des odeurs de soufre et vu des flammes vertes ; on m’accusait de sorcellerie et de maléfices.
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); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 French corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Similar French words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "maléfice", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked French headwords with 8 letters (nearest by frequency rank).