moineau
\mwa.no\
The verdict
“moineau” is a moderately-common French word, ranked #32,074 in French word frequency and used as a noun.
- #32,074
- frequency rank, French
- 7
- letters
- 8
- tracked misspellings
- 6
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Espèce de petit oiseau passereau, de la famille des passéridés, trapu au bec court et au plumage brunâtre et clair qui fait son nid dans les trous des murailles ou de tout bâtiment.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | moineau |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \mwa.no\ |
| Letters | 7 |
| Frequency rank | #32,074 |
| Misspellings tracked | 8 |
| Confusable pairs | 6 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “moineau” sits in French frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The French entry for moineau is 7 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \mwa.no\. Corpus data places it at rank #32,074 in overall French word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. Wiktionary records 6 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 8 likely wrong-spelling variants for moineau, with forms such as "mioneau", "mmoineau", and "moienau". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It also participates in 6 confusable-pair relationships, "moines", "moreau", "morceau", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
This entry carries no recorded etymology, so its spelling is easiest to reason about phoneme by phoneme, absent a documented history. The correct French form is moineau, spelled M-O-I-N-E-A-U.
Definition
- 1Espèce de petit oiseau passereau, de la famille des passéridés, trapu au bec court et au plumage brunâtre et clair qui fait son nid dans les trous des murailles ou de tout bâtiment.
- 2Espèce de petit oiseau passereau, de la famille des passéridés, trapu au bec court et au plumage brunâtre et clair qui fait son nid dans les trous des murailles ou de tout bâtiment.
- 3Petit ouvrage militaire construit dans les fossés d’une place forte et qui permettait aux défenseurs de tirer d’un côté, ou des deux côtés, de l’ouvrage sur les assaillants qui s’y trouvaient.
- 4Individu, type au comportement singulier.
- 5Volant.
- 6Pénis, zizi.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: mioneau,mmoineau,moienau,moinaeu,moineua,moinneau,monieau,omineau
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of moineau - counted as single-character edits (an insertion, a deletion, or a substituted letter). The larger the bar, the easier the typo is to spot; one-edit slips are the ones that sneak past readers.
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 "moineau"?
What does "moineau" mean?
What words are commonly confused with "moineau"?
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Using “moineau”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct French spelling is M-O-I-N-E-A-U - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as \mwa.no\ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “moines” - see the side-by-side comparison. moineau vs moines
- 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.