olfaction
\ɔl.fak.sjɔ̃\
The verdict
“olfaction” is uncommon French (frequency #87,909 among 1,642 “O” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #87,909
- frequency rank, French
- 1,642
- “O” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Action de sentir, odorat, flair. Flair, capacité à détecter les molécules aromatiques en suspension dans l'air.
Corpus desk
Index FR-olfaction · olfaction · French
olfaction · rank #87,909 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #87,909
- LEN-LONG 9 letters
- VOW-4 4 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 1,642
- PHOTO-FINISH ogivale
Nearest frequency peer: ogivale (-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.
Rangs de longue queue près de « olfaction »
Bande clairsemée: les barres inversent le rang pour que le rare se lise plus court
- océanograph…
océanographiques
12,095 corpus weight
- odds
odds
12,094 corpus weight
- ogivale
ogivale
12,093 corpus weight
- olfaction
olfaction
12,092 corpus weight
- omniscience
omniscience
12,091 corpus weight
- Onex
Onex
12,090 corpus weight
What this shows Vue de longue queue: où « olfaction » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | olfaction |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \ɔl.fak.sjɔ̃\ |
| Letters | 9 |
| Frequency rank | #87,909 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « olfaction » en français
Rare enough to double-check
olfaction is uncommon French at frequency #87,909 among 1,642 “O” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed \ɔl.fak.sjɔ̃\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Action de sentir, odorat, flair. Flair, capacité à détecter les molécules aromatiques en suspension dans l'air.".
olfaction doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, a straightforward case of a spelling with little room for common typos. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, suggesting its spelling stands apart enough that readers rarely confuse it with something else.
No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, so its spelling is best explained by sound-to-letter mapping rather than etymology. The correct French form is olfaction, spelled O-L-F-A-C-T-I-O-N.
Definition
- 1Action de sentir, odorat, flair. Flair, capacité à détecter les molécules aromatiques en suspension dans l'air.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how olfaction appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Le chien a une olfaction très développée.
L’olfaction se démarque des autres systèmes sensoriels par les caractéristiques uniques de son circuit neuro-anatomique.
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); 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 "olfaction", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked French headwords with 9 letters (nearest by frequency rank).