obs
\ɔps\
The verdict
“obs” is a moderately-common French word, ranked #13,851 in French word frequency and used as a verb.
- #13,851
- frequency rank, French
- 3
- letters
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Deuxième personne du singulier de l’impératif présent de obsen.
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 | obs |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | \ɔps\ |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #13,851 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “obs” sits in French frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The French entry for obs is 3 letters long, classified as a verb, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \ɔps\. Corpus data places it at rank #13,851 in overall French word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "Deuxième personne du singulier de l’impératif présent de obsen.".
obs has no tracked misspelling variants, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "on", "ou", "or", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
No borrowing history is documented 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 obs, spelled O-B-S.
Definition
- 1Deuxième personne du singulier de l’impératif présent de obsen.
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 “obs”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct French spelling is O-B-S - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as \ɔps\ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “on” - see the side-by-side comparison. obs vs on
- 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.