maracas

\ma.ʁa.kas\

/\ma.ʁa.kas\/ noun

The verdict

“maracas” is uncommon French (frequency #84,046 among 5,038 “M” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

#84,046
frequency rank, French
5,038
“M” headwords

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Récipient utilisé traditionnellement au Pérou pour y recueillir le baume du Pérou. On le fixe sous une incision faite dans l'arbre.

Corpus desk

Index FR-maracas · maracas · French

maracas · rank #84,046 · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-RARE #84,046
  • LEN-LONG 7 letters
  • VOW-3 3 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-DENSE 5,038
  • PHOTO-FINISH mapuche

Nearest frequency peer: mapuche (-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 « maracas »

Bande clairsemée: les barres inversent le rang pour que le rare se lise plus court

corpus weight

What this shows Vue de longue queue: où « maracas » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026
Key facts for maracas
PropertyValue
Headwordmaracas
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\ma.ʁa.kas\
Letters7
Frequency rank#84,046
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Longue queue: rang de « maracas » en français

Cette échelle va du noyau du français courant (gauche) jusqu'à la traîne des formes rares (droite).maracastombe dans cette queue de rareté:

#1#100#1K#10K#100K
← used constantlyrarely used →

L'axe est logarithmique: chaque tic marque environ dix fois moins de fréquence. Voisins rares de la même bande: « mapuche » (#84,045), « marchèrent » (#84,047), « Marcillac » (#84,048). Parmi 5,038 lemmes en « M », « maracas » est au #84,046. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

maracas is uncommon French at frequency #84,046 among 5,038 “M” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed \ma.ʁa.kas\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Récipient utilisé traditionnellement au Pérou pour y recueillir le baume du Pérou. On le fixe sous une incision faite dans l'arbre.".

We couldn't generate a plausible misspelling set for maracas, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable French rules. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our 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, leaving phoneme-to-grapheme mapping as the best guide to its spelling rather than a borrowing history. The correct French form is maracas, spelled M-A-R-A-C-A-S.

Definition

  1. 1
    Récipient utilisé traditionnellement au Pérou pour y recueillir le baume du Pérou. On le fixe sous une incision faite dans l'arbre.

Synonyms

cochine

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

How do you spell "maracas"?
"maracas" is spelled M-A-R-A-C-A-S. The IPA pronunciation is \ma.ʁa.kas\.
What does "maracas" mean?
As a noun, "maracas" means: Récipient utilisé traditionnellement au Pérou pour y recueillir le baume du Pérou. On le fixe sous une incision faite dans l'arbre.
How do you pronounce "maracas"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "maracas" is \ma.ʁa.kas\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "maracas" come from?
"maracas" 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.

Similar French words by spelling shape

Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "maracas", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked French headwords with 7 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list