ouvrir la boîte de Pandore

/\u.vʁiʁ la bwat də pɑ̃.dɔʁ\/ verb

The verdict

“ouvrir la boîte de Pandore” is outside the top-ranked French vocabulary, used as a verb — the kind of word writers most often double-check.

Unranked
below top-frequency French
26
letters

Dominant Wiktionary sense: Déclencher imprudemment une série d’événements nocifs inarrêtables ou presque.

Key facts for ouvrir la boîte de Pandore
PropertyValue
Headwordouvrir la boîte de Pandore
LanguageFrench
Part of speechVerb
IPA\u.vʁiʁ la bwat də pɑ̃.dɔʁ\
Letters26
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Where “ouvrir la boîte de Pandore” sits in French frequency

ouvrir la boîte de Pandore falls outside the top-100,000 ranked French words — the long-tail zone of technical, archaic, or low-frequency vocabulary, exactly where readers second-guess spellings most.

Beyond rank #100,000. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

The French entry for ouvrir la boîte de Pandore is 26 letters long, classified as a verb, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \u.vʁiʁ la bwat də pɑ̃.dɔʁ\. It sits outside the most-frequent rank tiers, which is often why uncommon words generate more spelling variants per reader. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "Déclencher imprudemment une série d’événements nocifs inarrêtables ou presque.".

No misspelling variants are generated for ouvrir la boîte de Pandore in our index, suggesting the orthography follows predictable French patterns. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.

No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct French form is ouvrir la boîte de Pandore, spelled O-U-V-R-I-R- -L-A- -B-O-Î-T-E- -D-E- -P-A-N-D-O-R-E, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.

Definition

  1. 1
    Déclencher imprudemment une série d’événements nocifs inarrêtables ou presque.

This word in other languages

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "ouvrir la boîte de Pandore"?
"ouvrir la boîte de Pandore" is spelled O-U-V-R-I-R- -L-A- -B-O-Î-T-E- -D-E- -P-A-N-D-O-R-E. The IPA pronunciation is \u.vʁiʁ la bwat də pɑ̃.dɔʁ\.
What does "ouvrir la boîte de Pandore" mean?
As a verb, "ouvrir la boîte de Pandore" means: Déclencher imprudemment une série d’événements nocifs inarrêtables ou presque.
How do you pronounce "ouvrir la boîte de Pandore"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "ouvrir la boîte de Pandore" is \u.vʁiʁ la bwat də pɑ̃.dɔʁ\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "ouvrir la boîte de Pandore" come from?
"ouvrir la boîte de Pandore" is a French word. PlainSpell covers definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Using “ouvrir la boîte de Pandore”

The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.

  • The one correct French spelling is O-U-V-R-I-R- -L-A- -B-O-Î-T-E- -D-E- -P-A-N-D-O-R-E — every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
  • Say it as \u.vʁiʁ la bwat də pɑ̃.dɔʁ\ (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

Nearby French words

Other entries that begin with the letter O in our French index:

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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.