mouche à feu

\mu.ʃ‿a fø\

/\mu.ʃ‿a fø\/ noun

By · According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA) ·

The verdict

“mouche à feu” is uncommon French (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

Unranked
below top-frequency French
12
letters

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Luciole.

Key facts for mouche à feu
PropertyValue
Headwordmouche à feu
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\mu.ʃ‿a fø\
Letters12
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Where “mouche à feu” sits in French frequency

mouche à feu 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.

Rare enough to double-check

mouche à feu is uncommon French outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun, transcribed \mu.ʃ‿a fø\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Luciole.".

We couldn't generate a plausible misspelling set for mouche à feu, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.

Wiktionary doesn't record an etymology for this headword, so its spelling is easiest to reason about phoneme by phoneme, absent a documented history. The correct French form is mouche à feu, spelled M-O-U-C-H-E- -À- -F-E-U.

Definition

  1. 1
    Luciole.

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

How do you spell "mouche à feu"?
"mouche à feu" is spelled M-O-U-C-H-E- -À- -F-E-U. The IPA pronunciation is \mu.ʃ‿a fø\.
What does "mouche à feu" mean?
As a noun, "mouche à feu" means: Luciole.
How do you pronounce "mouche à feu"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "mouche à feu" is \mu.ʃ‿a fø\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "mouche à feu" come from?
"mouche à feu" is a French word. PlainSpell's reference spans five languages -- English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German -- with definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for each.
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 “mouche à feu”

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

  • The one correct French spelling is M-O-U-C-H-E- -À- -F-E-U - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
  • Say it as \mu.ʃ‿a fø\ (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.

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

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