ouïr
\wiʁ\
The verdict
“ouïr” is uncommon French (outside the top frequency list), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency French
- 4
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Entendre, percevoir par l’ouïe.
Corpus desk
Index FR-ouir · ouïr · French
ouïr · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MID 4 letters
- VOW-3 3 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 | ouïr |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | \wiʁ\ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « ouïr » en français
Rare enough to double-check
ouïr is uncommon French outside the top frequency list, classed as averb, transcribed \wiʁ\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for ouïr, a straightforward case of a spelling with little room for common typos. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.
Wiktionary doesn't record an etymology for this headword, so its spelling is easiest to reason about phoneme by phoneme, absent a documented history. The correct French form is ouïr, spelled O-U-Ï-R.
Definition
- 1Entendre, percevoir par l’ouïe.
- 2Recevoir des dépositions, des déclarations publiques des différentes parties.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how ouïr appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Comme en un concert d’instruments, on n’oit pas un luth, une épinette et la flûte, on oit une harmonie en globe, l’assemblage et le fruit de tout cet amas.
— Nos nous reponrons que cest buriau d’esteule, et serons la tuit coi ; et bien verrons et orrons que Isengrins vourra faire.
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). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.