nard
\naʁ\
The verdict
“nard” is an uncommon French word, ranked #93,024 in French word frequency and used as a noun.
- #93,024
- frequency rank, French
- 4
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) — Nardus, genre de plantes herbacées aromatiques des prés de la famille des Poacées (ou graminées) qui comprend une unique espèce, le nard raide (Nardus stricta).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | nard |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \naʁ\ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #93,024 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “nard” sits in French frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The French entry for nard is 4 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \naʁ\. Corpus data places it at rank #93,024 in overall French word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. Wiktionary records 4 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
No misspelling variants are generated for nard 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 nard, spelled N-A-R-D, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1Nardus, genre de plantes herbacées aromatiques des prés de la famille des Poacées (ou graminées) qui comprend une unique espèce, le nard raide (Nardus stricta).
- 2Nardostachys, genre de plantes herbacées de la famille des valérianacées comportant plusieurs espèces dont le très odoriférant Nardostachys jatamansi.
- 3Synonyme de lavande aspic.
- 4Huile ambrée parfumée que les anciens tiraient de certaines racines, en particulier de la valériane celtique.
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); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 French corpus, MIT). 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, “nard, 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/nard
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Using “nard”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct French spelling is N-A-R-D - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as \naʁ\ (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
Nearby French words
Other entries that begin with the letter N in our French index: