malheur

/\ma.lœʁ\/ noun

Letters

7 characters

Frequency Rank

#4,503

in French word usage

Misspellings

10

tracked variants

Confusables

8

similar word pairs

malheur is aFrenchnoun. It means: Mauvaise fortune ; mauvaise destinée. Pronounced \ma.lœʁ\. It ranks #4,503 in French word frequency. Often confused with mayeur and mangeur.

Key facts for malheur
PropertyValue
Headwordmalheur
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\ma.lœʁ\
Letters7
Frequency rank#4,503
Misspellings tracked10
Confusable pairs8
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Frequency rank visualization

Position of malheur in French word frequency (lower rank = more common)

Source: Wordfreq corpus

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

The French entry for malheur is 7 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \ma.lœʁ\. Corpus data places it at rank #4,503 in overall French word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 3 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.

Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 10 documented wrong-spelling variants for malheur, with forms such as "amlheur", "mahleur", and "malehur". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 8 confusable-pair relationships, "mayeur", "mangeur", "masseur", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.

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 malheur, spelled M-A-L-H-E-U-R, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.

Definition

  1. 1
    Mauvaise fortune ; mauvaise destinée.
  2. 2
    Accident fâcheux ; désastre.
  3. 3
    Ce qui est regrettable dans une chose.

This word in other languages

Common misspellings

Also misspelled as: amlheur,mahleur,malehur,malheru,malheurr,malhheur,malhuer,mallheur,mlaheur,mmalheur

Misspelling Pattern Breakdown

Relative frequency of common misspelling types for malheur

Misspelling Variants of "malheur"

amlheur7mahleur7malehur7malheru7malheurr8malhheur8malhuer7mallheur8
Misspelling Variants of "malheur"

Frequency rank: #4,503 in French

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "malheur"?
"malheur" is spelled M-A-L-H-E-U-R. The IPA pronunciation is \ma.lœʁ\.
What does "malheur" mean?
As a noun, "malheur" means: Mauvaise fortune ; mauvaise destinée.
What words are commonly confused with "malheur"?
"malheur" is commonly confused with "mayeur", "mangeur", "masseur". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "malheur"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "malheur" is \ma.lœʁ\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "malheur" come from?
"malheur" is a French word. PlainSpell covers definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Nearby French words

Other entries that begin with the letter M in our French index:

Explore PlainSpell

Data Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Frequency data from Wordfreq. Misspellings derived from Hunspell dictionaries.