mettre le doigt là où ça fait mal

verb

The verdict

“mettre le doigt là où ça fait mal” is outside the top-ranked French vocabulary, used as a verb - the kind of word writers most often double-check.

Unranked
below top-frequency French
33
letters

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Toucher un point sensible ; aborder un sujet déplaisant.

Key facts for mettre le doigt là où ça fait mal
PropertyValue
Headwordmettre le doigt là où ça fait mal
LanguageFrench
Part of speechVerb
Letters33
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Where “mettre le doigt là où ça fait mal” sits in French frequency

mettre le doigt là où ça fait mal falls outside the top-100,000 ranked French words, the long-tail zone of technical, archaic, or low-frequency vocabulary, exactly where readers second-guess spellings most.

Beyond rank #100,000. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

The French entry for mettre le doigt là où ça fait mal is 33 letters long, classified as a verb. It sits outside the most-frequent rank tiers, which is often why uncommon words generate more spelling variants per reader. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "Toucher un point sensible ; aborder un sujet déplaisant.".

No misspelling variants are generated for mettre le doigt là où ça fait mal in our index, suggesting the orthography follows predictable French patterns. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.

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 mettre le doigt là où ça fait mal, spelled M-E-T-T-R-E- -L-E- -D-O-I-G-T- -L-À- -O-Ù- -Ç-A- -F-A-I-T- -M-A-L, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.

Definition

  1. 1
    Toucher un point sensible ; aborder un sujet déplaisant.

Synonyms

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.

Cite this page

Free to reuse with attribution (CC BY-SA). Copy the citation:

PlainSpell, “mettre le doigt là où ça fait mal, French word data” (May 6, 2026). Derived from Wiktionary (kaikki.org, CC BY-SA) and an open word-frequency list. https://plainspell.com/fr/mot/mettre-le-doigt-la-ou-ca-fait-mal

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "mettre le doigt là où ça fait mal"?
"mettre le doigt là où ça fait mal" is spelled M-E-T-T-R-E- -L-E- -D-O-I-G-T- -L-À- -O-Ù- -Ç-A- -F-A-I-T- -M-A-L.
What does "mettre le doigt là où ça fait mal" mean?
As a verb, "mettre le doigt là où ça fait mal" means: Toucher un point sensible ; aborder un sujet déplaisant.
What language does "mettre le doigt là où ça fait mal" come from?
"mettre le doigt là où ça fait mal" 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.

Using “mettre le doigt là où ça fait mal”

The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.

  • The one correct French spelling is M-E-T-T-R-E- -L-E- -D-O-I-G-T- -L-À- -O-Ù- -Ç-A- -F-A-I-T- -M-A-L - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
  • Browse more French words and confusable pairs in the same reference. French words

Nearby French words

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

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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.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list FrequencyWords open word-frequency list