niveau

\ni.vo\

/\ni.vo\/ noun

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

The verdict

“niveau” has 7 generated spelling variants in the French index at frequency #317. The variants make it a useful spelling check.

#317
frequency rank, French
1,563
“N” headwords
7
tracked misspellings
4
confusable pairs

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Outil servant à vérifier l’horizontalité d’une surface, d’un sol.

Corpus desk

Index FR-niveau · niveau · French

niveau · rank #317 · 7 variants · 4 confusables

  • FREQ-CORE #317
  • LEN-LONG 6 letters
  • VOW-4 4 vowels
  • CONFUS-MID 4 pairs
  • VAR-MID 7 variants
  • BOOK-MID 1,563
  • PHOTO-FINISH guerre

Nearest frequency peer: guerre (-1 rank slots)

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.

Pairs de rang près de l'aimant d'erreurs « niveau »

Même bande de rareté: utile si une faute tombe sur un lemme voisin

corpus weight

What this shows « niveau » siège parmi ces pairs FrequencyWords; la profondeur des fautes est suivie à part dans le graphique d'édition.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026

Visual similarity to commonly confused words

How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).

niveau vs nouveau
71% similar
niveau vs niveaux
86% similar
niveau vs neveu
67% similar

Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).

Key facts for niveau
PropertyValue
Headwordniveau
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\ni.vo\
Letters6
Frequency rank#317
Misspellings tracked7
Confusable pairs4
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Fréquence de l'aimant d'erreurs « niveau »

De gauche à droite: le peu qui porte la parole quotidienne, puis la longue queue quasi invisible.niveause place ici:

#1#100#1K#10K#100K
← used constantlyrarely used →

L'axe est logarithmique: chaque tic marque environ dix fois moins de fréquence. Dans la même bande de rareté figurent « guerre » (#316), « passé » (#318), « gros » (#315). Parmi 1,563 lemmes en « N », « niveau » est au #317. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

A misspelling magnet

The generator records 7 spelling variants around niveau (IPA \ni.vo\), anoun. Corpus frequency is #317 among 1,563 “N” headwords. Wiktionary lists 8 senses, so context still picks the gloss.

Our generated misspelling index lists 7 likely wrong-spelling variants for niveau, with forms such as "inveau", "nievau", and "nivaeu". Each variant is a distinct typo pattern an edit-distance generator flags, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution. It also participates in 4 confusable-pair relationships, "nouveau", "niveaux", "neveu", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.

This headword's origin isn't recorded in our source data, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. The correct French form is niveau, spelled N-I-V-E-A-U.

Definition

  1. 1
    Outil servant à vérifier l’horizontalité d’une surface, d’un sol.
  2. 2
    Degré d’élévation par rapport à un plan horizontal.
  3. 3
    Degré de remplissage d'un réservoir.
  4. 4
    Degré d'évolution.
  5. 5
    Degré de compétence ou de capacité.
  6. 6
    Étage.
  7. 7
    Étape d’un jeu vidéo.
  8. 8
    Niveau d’énergie.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

These source excerpts show how niveau appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. Les outils de tracé et de contrôle sont l’équerre, la règle, la fausse équerre dite sauterelle, le biveau, le panneau ou gabarit, le compas, le fil à plomb et le niveau. Ces outils se retrouvent dessinés ou gravés sur de nombreux documents ou monumets de l'Antiquité à nos jours.
  2. L’abbé Picard, avec le niveau à lunette qu’il avait inventé et dont la longue-vue horizontale à fort grossissement permettait des repères à grande distance, prouva que Riquet se trompait de trente-quatre mètres (un rien!).

This word in other languages

level(English)nivel(Español)Wasserwaage(Deutsch)andar(Português)

Common misspellings

Also misspelled as:

  • inveau
  • nievau
  • nivaeu
  • niveua
  • nivveau
  • nniveau
  • nvieau

Misspelling Pattern Breakdown

How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of niveau - 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.

inveau2nievau2nivaeu2niveua2nivveau1nniveau1nvieau2
Edit distance from "niveau"

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 "niveau"?
"niveau" is spelled N-I-V-E-A-U. The IPA pronunciation is \ni.vo\.
What does "niveau" mean?
As a noun, "niveau" means: Outil servant à vérifier l’horizontalité d’une surface, d’un sol.
What words are commonly confused with "niveau"?
"niveau" is commonly confused with "nouveau", "niveaux", "neveu". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "niveau"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "niveau" is \ni.vo\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "niveau" come from?
"niveau" is a French word. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for this and other words across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German on PlainSpell.
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.

Similar French words by spelling shape

Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "niveau", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked French headwords with 6 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

guerre#316quatre#320accord#324autant#310

Similar misspelling depth

Headwords with a similar count of attested misspellings (7 here; floor ≥5).

donner7 variantsvient7 variantsparti7 variantscrois7 variants

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list