noyer le poisson
\nwa.je lə pwa.sɔ̃\
The verdict
“noyer le poisson” is outside the top-ranked French vocabulary, used as a verb - the kind of word writers most often double-check.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency French
- 16
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Fatiguer un poisson pris à la ligne, avant de le tirer de l’eau.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | noyer le poisson |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | \nwa.je lə pwa.sɔ̃\ |
| Letters | 16 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “noyer le poisson” sits in French frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The French entry for noyer le poisson is 16 letters long, classified as a verb, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \nwa.je lə pwa.sɔ̃\. It sits outside the most-frequent rank tiers, which is often why uncommon words generate more spelling variants per reader. Wiktionary records 2 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
We couldn't generate a plausible misspelling set for noyer le poisson, 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, which typically means the spelling is too distinctive to be mistaken for another word.
This entry's etymology isn't recorded, leaving phoneme-to-grapheme mapping as the best guide to its spelling rather than a borrowing history. The correct French form is noyer le poisson, spelled N-O-Y-E-R- -L-E- -P-O-I-S-S-O-N.
Definition
- 1Fatiguer un poisson pris à la ligne, avant de le tirer de l’eau.
- 2Ne pas aborder un thème tabou ou un sujet difficile, le dissimuler sous un monceau de détails.
Synonyms
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.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “noyer le poisson”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct French spelling is N-O-Y-E-R- -L-E- -P-O-I-S-S-O-N - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as \nwa.je lə pwa.sɔ̃\ (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.