palimpseste
\pa.lɛ̃p.sɛst\
The verdict
“palimpseste” is uncommon French (frequency #85,097 among 248,534 “P” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #85,097
- frequency rank, French
- 248,534
- “P” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Manuscrit dont on a fait disparaître l’écriture pour y écrire un autre texte.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | palimpseste |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \pa.lɛ̃p.sɛst\ |
| Letters | 11 |
| Frequency rank | #85,097 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “palimpseste” sits in French frequency
Rare enough to double-check
palimpseste is uncommon French at frequency #85,097 among 248,534 “P” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed \pa.lɛ̃p.sɛst\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 4 senses are on record.
Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for palimpseste, typically a sign the spelling maps closely to how the word sounds. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.
Wiktionary doesn't record an etymology for this headword, leaving phoneme-to-grapheme mapping as the best guide to its spelling rather than a borrowing history. The correct French form is palimpseste, spelled P-A-L-I-M-P-S-E-S-T-E.
Definition
- 1Manuscrit dont on a fait disparaître l’écriture pour y écrire un autre texte.
- 2Œuvre architecturale qui a subi de nombreuses modifications apportées à la structure d’origine.
- 3Tache circulaire, claire et sans relief apparent, qui est observée à la surface d’astres sombres et glacés, et peut correspondre à un cratère d’impact météoritique dont le relief aurait été complètement érodé.
- 4Document à réécrire ; concept à redéfinir.
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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Using “palimpseste”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct French spelling is P-A-L-I-M-P-S-E-S-T-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as \pa.lɛ̃p.sɛst\ (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
Other uncommon French words near this rank
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.