nec plus ultra
\nɛk.ply.s‿yl.tʁa\
The verdict
“nec plus ultra” is uncommon French (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency French
- 14
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Limite spatiale ou matérielle.
Corpus desk
Index FR-nec-plus-ultra · nec plus ultra · French
nec plus ultra · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 14 letters
- VOW-4 4 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "N" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | nec plus ultra |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \nɛk.ply.s‿yl.tʁa\ |
| Letters | 14 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « nec plus ultra » en français
Rare enough to double-check
nec plus ultra is uncommon French outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun, transcribed \nɛk.ply.s‿yl.tʁa\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
No misspelling variants are generated for nec plus ultra in our index, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.
No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, so any spelling logic here comes from how the word's sounds map to letters, not a documented origin story. The correct French form is nec plus ultra, spelled N-E-C- -P-L-U-S- -U-L-T-R-A.
Definition
- 1Limite spatiale ou matérielle.
- 2Degré le plus haut ; ce qu’il y a ou ce qui se fait de mieux.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how nec plus ultra appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Il y a une limite qu’on ne franchit pas. À Cadix et devant Murillo, Horace Vernet rencontra cette limite, son nec plus ultra.
Il y a dans les Marrons du feu une feuille qui ne contient que treize syllabes ; c’est le nec plus ultra du genre, et il n’est pas donné à beaucoup de s’élever à cette hauteur.
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.