mellah
\mɛ.la\
The verdict
“mellah” is uncommon French (frequency #90,928 among 5,038 “M” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #90,928
- frequency rank, French
- 5,038
- “M” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Quartier juif au Maroc.
Corpus desk
Index FR-mellah · mellah · French
mellah · rank #90,928 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #90,928
- LEN-LONG 6 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 5,038
- PHOTO-FINISH McNulty
Nearest frequency peer: McNulty (-2 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 « mellah »
Bande clairsemée: les barres inversent le rang pour que le rare se lise plus court
- maximisant
maximisant
9,077 corpus weight
- McNulty
McNulty
9,075 corpus weight
- mellah
mellah
9,073 corpus weight
- mendient
mendient
9,071 corpus weight
- merge
merge
9,070 corpus weight
- meringuée
meringuée
9,069 corpus weight
What this shows Vue de longue queue: où « mellah » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | mellah |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \mɛ.la\ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #90,928 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « mellah » en français
Rare enough to double-check
mellah is uncommon French at frequency #90,928 among 5,038 “M” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed \mɛ.la\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Quartier juif au Maroc.".
mellah has no tracked misspelling variants, a sign its spelling follows regular French conventions. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, since no other headword is close enough in sound or shape to pair with it.
This headword's origin isn't recorded in our source data, so its spelling pattern is best understood through pronunciation rather than a traceable origin. The correct French form is mellah, spelled M-E-L-L-A-H.
Definition
- 1Quartier juif au Maroc.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how mellah appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Les Juifs avaient dans l’ancien Maroc, le privilège de saler les têtes des rebelles. D’où le nom de saloir (mellah) donné au ghetto.
Dans les mellahs, le moqadem des quartiers de la vie musulmane était remplacé par le cheikh el yhoud qui en assurait la police sous l'autorité du gouverneur de la ville.
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 "mellah", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked French headwords with 6 letters (nearest by frequency rank).