orseille
French, noun/ɔʁ.sɛj/
orseille is spelled O-R-S-E-I-L-L-E (8 letters) and appears about once in every 91 million words in written French, the 298,135th most frequent French word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). Orseille is a French feminine noun meaning “orchil” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) defines it as “Nom vernaculaire de divers lichens du genre Rocella dont on extrayait une matière colorante, l’orcine, pour…”.
What does orseille mean in English?
noun
- 1
feminineorchil
Source: English Wiktionary, French section, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0).
How French dictionaries define it
noun: 1. Nom vernaculaire de divers lichens du genre Rocella dont on extrayait une matière colorante, l’orcine, pour teindre les étoffes en rouge violet. 2. Cette matière colorante obtenue par fermentation.
The definition in the French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire), in French.
Source: French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire), dump of September 1, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org.
Forms of orseille
- orseilles plural
- orseil
Source: English Wiktionary and French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026).
How do you pronounce orseille?
- /ɔʁ.sɛj/
- \ɔʁ.sɛj\
Sources: English Wiktionary, French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026); recordings from Wikimedia Commons.
How common is orseille in French?
orseille appears about once in every 91 million words in written French.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).