off
\ɔf\
The verdict
“off” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #5,054) as an adjective. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.
- #5,054
- frequency rank, French
- 1,642
- “O” headwords
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Hors antenne ; non diffusé.
Corpus desk
Index FR-off · off · French
off · rank #5,054 · 0 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-COMMON #5,054
- LEN-MID 3 letters
- VOW-1 1 vowel
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 1,642
- PHOTO-FINISH observations
Nearest frequency peer: observations (-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.
Voisins de fréquence du confusable « off »
Pairs de poids proche dans le corpus, séparés des confusables ci-dessous
- musulmane
musulmane
94,950 corpus weight
- mémoires
mémoires
94,949 corpus weight
- observations
observations
94,948 corpus weight
- off
off
94,947 corpus weight
- Oscar
Oscar
94,946 corpus weight
- panique
panique
94,945 corpus weight
What this shows Les barres placent « off » face aux lemmes français les plus proches par rang, pas un reprint du bureau des confusables.
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 | off |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | \ɔf\ |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #5,054 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Rang de corpus près des confusables de « off »
Easy to mix with look-alikes
The spelling risk for off is neighbouring look-alikes ("on", "ou", …), not just typos; it is anadjective pronounced \ɔf\. Frequency #5,054 among 1,642 “O” headwords. 3 recorded senses keep meaning in play.
The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for off, a straightforward case of a spelling with little room for common typos. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "on", "ou", "or", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
No borrowing history is documented for this entry, so its spelling is easiest explained by how it's pronounced rather than where it came from. The correct French form is off, spelled O-F-F.
Definition
- 1Hors antenne ; non diffusé.
- 2Hors champ ; hors cadre ; qualifie en particulier la voix du narrateur (voix off).
- 3En marge d’un programme officiel ; officieux ; avant-gardiste ou marginal.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how off appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Peu à peu, l’usage du off s’est banalisé. Systématisé. Et s’est imposé aux journalistes. A tel point que la relation entre la presse et les politiques s’est déséquilibrée. Ces derniers présentent les échanges off comme des moments privilégiés, réservés aux initiés dignes de confiance.
À côté du festival proprement dit [le Festival d'Avignon], il y a une centaine de spectacles « off », qui champignonnent et parfois grandissent dans tous les coins.
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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Similar French words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "off", not the corpus desk frequency band.