ostracisme
\ɔs.tʁa.sism\
The verdict
“ostracisme” is uncommon French (frequency #51,641 among 1,642 “O” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #51,641
- frequency rank, French
- 1,642
- “O” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Vote par lequel certaines cités grecques bannissaient pour dix ans les citoyens qui avaient encouru la défaveur publique.
Corpus desk
Index FR-ostracisme · ostracisme · French
ostracisme · rank #51,641 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #51,641
- LEN-MEGA 10 letters
- VOW-4 4 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 1,642
- PHOTO-FINISH oseraient
Nearest frequency peer: oseraient (-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 « ostracisme »
Bande clairsemée: les barres inversent le rang pour que le rare se lise plus court
- ondine
ondine
48,363 corpus weight
- originelles
originelles
48,362 corpus weight
- oseraient
oseraient
48,361 corpus weight
- ostracisme
ostracisme
48,360 corpus weight
- otaries
otaries
48,359 corpus weight
- ottomanes
ottomanes
48,358 corpus weight
What this shows Vue de longue queue: où « ostracisme » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | ostracisme |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \ɔs.tʁa.sism\ |
| Letters | 10 |
| Frequency rank | #51,641 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « ostracisme » en français
Rare enough to double-check
ostracisme is uncommon French at frequency #51,641 among 1,642 “O” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed \ɔs.tʁa.sism\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
ostracisme doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. This entry stands alone in our confusable dataset, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.
No borrowing history is documented for this entry, 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 ostracisme, spelled O-S-T-R-A-C-I-S-M-E.
Definition
- 1Vote par lequel certaines cités grecques bannissaient pour dix ans les citoyens qui avaient encouru la défaveur publique.
- 2Parti pris d’exclusion à l’égard d’une personne ou d’un groupement.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how ostracisme appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Mais par la suite l’ostracisme devait constituer une arme redoutable entre les mains du démos, et les nombreux ostraka qui sont parvenus jusqu’à nous montrent qu’aucun homme politique athénien n’échappa à la méfiance populaire.
Victime d’un ostracisme qui lui rendait l’existence insupportable, la petite fille, sur le chemin du retour, ne parvenait pas à se décider si elle se jetterait dans la grande « boutasse » des Thiollière ou si elle se pendrait au hêtre qui marquait une limite du domaine paternel.
Synonyms
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 "ostracisme", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked French headwords with 10 letters (nearest by frequency rank).