panais

\pa.nɛ\

/\pa.nɛ\/ noun

The verdict

“panais” is uncommon French (frequency #61,012 among 6,826 “P” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

#61,012
frequency rank, French
6,826
“P” headwords

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Plante potagère, de la famille des apiacées (ombellifères).

Corpus desk

Index FR-panais · panais · French

panais · rank #61,012 · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-RARE #61,012
  • LEN-LONG 6 letters
  • VOW-3 3 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-DENSE 6,826
  • PHOTO-FINISH paléontologue

Nearest frequency peer: paléontologue (-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 « panais »

Bande clairsemée: les barres inversent le rang pour que le rare se lise plus court

corpus weight

What this shows Vue de longue queue: où « panais » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026
Key facts for panais
PropertyValue
Headwordpanais
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\pa.nɛ\
Letters6
Frequency rank#61,012
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Longue queue: rang de « panais » en français

La fréquence va de la poignée de mots du quotidien (gauche) à la longue queue presque jamais vue (droite).panaistombe dans cette queue de rareté:

#1#100#1K#10K#100K
← used constantlyrarely used →

L'échelle est logarithmique (chaque tic ≈ 10× plus rare). Voisins rares de la même bande: « paléontologue » (#61,011), « parallaxe » (#61,013), « palpation » (#61,010). Parmi 6,826 lemmes en « P », « panais » est au #61,012. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

panais is uncommon French at frequency #61,012 among 6,826 “P” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed \pa.nɛ\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 3 senses are on record.

panais has no tracked misspelling variants, a sign its spelling follows regular French conventions. Our dataset records no confusable match here, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.

Our source data has no etymology on file 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 panais, spelled P-A-N-A-I-S.

Definition

  1. 1
    Plante potagère, de la famille des apiacées (ombellifères).
  2. 2
    Racine de cette plante qui est d’un blanc jaunâtre et d’une saveur douce.
  3. 3
    Pénis, sexe masculin.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

These source excerpts show how panais appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. Les panais se multiplient de graine, laquelle est plate, de figure ovale, & de couleur brune : […].
  2. Il y avait dans ce temps-là de grands hivers, de brûlants étés. J’ai connu, depuis, des étés dont la couleur, si je ferme les yeux, est celle de la terre ocreuse, fendillée entre les tiges du blé et sous la géante ombelle du panais sauvage, celle de la mer grise ou bleue.

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

How do you spell "panais"?
"panais" is spelled P-A-N-A-I-S. The IPA pronunciation is \pa.nɛ\.
What does "panais" mean?
As a noun, "panais" means: Plante potagère, de la famille des apiacées (ombellifères).
How do you pronounce "panais"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "panais" is \pa.nɛ\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "panais" come from?
"panais" is a French word. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for this and other words across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German on PlainSpell.
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.

Similar French words by spelling shape

Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "panais", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked French headwords with 6 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list