obligé
The verdict
“obligé” is a regularly-used French word, ranked #1,780 in French word frequency and used as an adjective.
- #1,780
- frequency rank, French
- 6
- letters
- 9
- tracked misspellings
- 13
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Qui est d’usage, dont on ne peut guère se dispenser ; obligatoire.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | obligé |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #1,780 |
| Misspellings tracked | 9 |
| Confusable pairs | 13 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “obligé” sits in French frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The French entry for obligé is 6 letters long, classified as an adjective. Corpus data places it at rank #1,780 in overall French word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. Wiktionary records 5 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 9 likely wrong-spelling variants for obligé, with forms such as "boligé", "obbligé", and "obilgé". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It also participates in 13 confusable-pair relationships, "olive", "oublie", "online", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Wiktionary doesn't record an etymology for this headword, so its spelling pattern is best understood through pronunciation rather than a traceable origin. The correct French form is obligé, spelled O-B-L-I-G-É.
Definition
- 1Qui est d’usage, dont on ne peut guère se dispenser ; obligatoire.
- 2Redevable.
- 3Contraint.
- 4Qualifie la partie qu'on ne pourrait retrancher sans gâter l'harmonie et surtout sans détruire le chant.
- 5Qualifie un récitatif accompagné et coupé par les instruments ; par opposition à celui qui n'est accompagné que de simples accords de piano et de basse.
Synonyms
Antonyms
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: boligé,obbligé,obilgé,oblgié,oblige,obliggé,obliég,oblligé,olbigé
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of obligé - expressed in single-character edits (insert, delete, or swap one letter). Bigger bars stand out at a glance; a one-edit slip is the hardest to catch.
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
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Using “obligé”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct French spelling is O-B-L-I-G-É - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Don't mix it up with “olive” - see the side-by-side comparison. obligé vs olive
- 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.