paf
\paf\
The verdict
“paf” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #16,960) as an onomatopoeia. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.
- #16,960
- frequency rank, French
- 6,826
- “P” headwords
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Onomatopée dont on se sert pour exprimer le bruit d’un coup, d’une chute.
Corpus desk
Index FR-paf · paf · French
paf · rank #16,960 · 0 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-MID #16,960
- LEN-MID 3 letters
- VOW-1 1 vowel
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 6,826
- PHOTO-FINISH offrira
Nearest frequency peer: offrira (-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.
Voisins de fréquence du confusable « paf »
Pairs de poids proche dans le corpus, séparés des confusables ci-dessous
- obligent
obligent
83,044 corpus weight
- odyssée
odyssée
83,043 corpus weight
- offrira
offrira
83,042 corpus weight
- paf
paf
83,041 corpus weight
- parenthèse
parenthèse
83,040 corpus weight
- paternel
paternel
83,039 corpus weight
What this shows Les barres placent « paf » face aux lemmes français les plus proches par rang, pas un reprint du bureau des confusables.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | paf |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Onomatopoeia |
| IPA | \paf\ |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #16,960 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Rang de corpus près des confusables de « paf »
Easy to mix with look-alikes
The spelling risk for paf is neighbouring look-alikes ("pu", "PS", …), not just typos; it is anonomatopoeia pronounced \paf\. Frequency #16,960 among 6,826 “P” headwords. Gloss: "Onomatopée dont on se sert pour exprimer le bruit d’un coup, d’une chute.".
No misspelling variants are generated for paf in our index, a sign its spelling follows regular French conventions. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "pu", "PS", "PQ", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, leaving phoneme-to-grapheme mapping as the best guide to its spelling rather than a borrowing history. The correct French form is paf, spelled P-A-F.
Definition
- 1Onomatopée dont on se sert pour exprimer le bruit d’un coup, d’une chute.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how paf appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Voilà qui était beau à voir comme ils se renvoyaient les balles. Paf ! paf ! Jamais elles ne touchaient terre.
« Vois-tu, on tourne la virole ainsi et puis on donne le coup comme cela ; de bas en haut, le fer entre mieux. Porte-le dans ton corsage, et quand les méchants te voudront contrarier, paf ! tu leur fendras le ventre. » Et la petite commentait ses paroles de gestes assortis.
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
How do you spell "paf"?
What does "paf" mean?
What words are commonly confused with "paf"?
How do you pronounce "paf"?
What language does "paf" come from?
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Similar French words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "paf", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked French headwords with 3 letters (nearest by frequency rank).