ménage à trois
\me.na.ʒ‿a tʁwa\
The verdict
“ménage à trois” is outside the top-ranked French vocabulary, used as a noun - the kind of word writers most often double-check.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency French
- 14
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Couple qui accueille une troisième personne à la maison, souvent l’amant ou l’amante du mari ou de la femme.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | ménage à trois |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \me.na.ʒ‿a tʁwa\ |
| Letters | 14 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “ménage à trois” sits in French frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The French entry for ménage à trois is 14 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \me.na.ʒ‿a tʁwa\. It sits outside the most-frequent rank tiers, which is often why uncommon words generate more spelling variants per reader. Wiktionary records 3 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
No generated misspelling entries exist for ménage à trois in our index, suggesting the orthography follows predictable French patterns. 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.
Our source data has no etymology on file for this entry, so its spelling is best read as a straightforward mapping from sound to letter. The correct French form is ménage à trois, spelled M-É-N-A-G-E- -À- -T-R-O-I-S.
Definition
- 1Couple qui accueille une troisième personne à la maison, souvent l’amant ou l’amante du mari ou de la femme.
- 2Trio.
- 3Triolisme, pratique sexuelle impliquant trois personnes.
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.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “ménage à trois”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct French spelling is M-É-N-A-G-E- -À- -T-R-O-I-S - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as \me.na.ʒ‿a tʁwa\ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Browse more French words and confusable pairs in the same reference. French words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.