oiseau-mouche
\wa.zo.muʃ\
The verdict
“oiseau-mouche” is uncommon French (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency French
- 13
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Colibri.
Corpus desk
Index FR-oiseau-mouche · oiseau-mouche · French
oiseau-mouche · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 13 letters
- VOW-8 8 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "O" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
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.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | oiseau-mouche |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \wa.zo.muʃ\ |
| Letters | 13 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « oiseau-mouche » en français
Rare enough to double-check
oiseau-mouche is uncommon French outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun, transcribed \wa.zo.muʃ\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Colibri.".
No misspelling variants are generated for oiseau-mouche in our index, a sign its spelling follows regular French conventions. Our dataset records no confusable match here, which typically means the spelling is too distinctive to be mistaken for another word.
Our source data has no etymology on file for this entry, so its spelling is best explained by sound-to-letter mapping rather than etymology. The correct French form is oiseau-mouche, spelled O-I-S-E-A-U---M-O-U-C-H-E.
Definition
- 1Colibri.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how oiseau-mouche appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Ce que nous avons dit de la beauté de l’oiseau-mouche, de sa vivacité, de son vol bourdonnant et rapide, de sa constance à visiter les fleurs, de sa manière de nicher et de vivre, doit s’appliquer également au colibri. Un même instinct anime ces deux charmans oiseaux, et c’est leur ressemblance qui les a fait souvent confondre sous un même nom, cependant…
Oiseaux-mouches aux couleurs resplendissantes.
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.