oriflamme
\ɔ.ʁi.flɑm\
The verdict
“oriflamme” is uncommon French (frequency #89,987 among 75,470 “O” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #89,987
- frequency rank, French
- 75,470
- “O” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Petit étendard dont la partie flottante était terminée en pointes, qui fut d’abord la bannière de l’abbaye de Saint-Denis et qui fut porté jusqu’au XVᵉ siècle devant les rois de France quand ils al...
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | oriflamme |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \ɔ.ʁi.flɑm\ |
| Letters | 9 |
| Frequency rank | #89,987 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “oriflamme” sits in French frequency
Rare enough to double-check
oriflamme is uncommon French at frequency #89,987 among 75,470 “O” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed \ɔ.ʁi.flɑm\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 4 senses are on record.
No generated misspelling entries exist for oriflamme in our index, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. No confusable counterpart is on file for this word, which usually means its spelling is distinct enough that readers don't reach for a similar-looking word instead.
This entry's etymology isn't recorded, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. The correct French form is oriflamme, spelled O-R-I-F-L-A-M-M-E.
Definition
- 1Petit étendard dont la partie flottante était terminée en pointes, qui fut d’abord la bannière de l’abbaye de Saint-Denis et qui fut porté jusqu’au XVᵉ siècle devant les rois de France quand ils allaient à la guerre.
- 2Bannière analogue.
- 3Voile imprimée servant de support de communication.
- 4Meuble représentant une bannière d’apparat dans les armoiries. Elle est généralement représentée étroite, longue, animée d’un mouvement comme battant au vent et terminée par deux ou trois pointes. Elle est attachée à une lance. On la qualifie d’emmanchée quand la lance est d’un autre émail. Il est à noter que traditionnellement, elle porte à chaque pointe des houppes de laine verte (sinople) qui ont disparu des représentations modernes. Rarement seule, elle est souvent utilisée comme attribut pour un chevalier ou saint combattant. À rapprocher de bannière, étendard, gonfanon, guidon, pavillon et pennon.
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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Using “oriflamme”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct French spelling is O-R-I-F-L-A-M-M-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as \ɔ.ʁi.flɑm\ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Browse more French words and confusable pairs in the same reference. French words
Other uncommon French words near this rank
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.