panne

\pan\

/\pan\/ noun

By · According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA) ·

The verdict

“panne” has 5 generated spelling variants in the French index at frequency #4,966. The variants make it a useful spelling check.

#4,966
frequency rank, French
6,826
“P” headwords
5
tracked misspellings
20
confusable pairs

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Position immobile d’un navire.

Corpus desk

Index FR-panne · panne · French

panne · rank #4,966 · 5 variants · 20 confusables

  • FREQ-COMMON #4,966
  • LEN-MID 5 letters
  • VOW-2 2 vowels
  • CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
  • VAR-MID 5 variants
  • BOOK-DENSE 6,826
  • PHOTO-FINISH panneaux

Nearest frequency peer: panneaux (+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.

Pairs de rang près de l'aimant d'erreurs « panne »

Même bande de rareté: utile si une faute tombe sur un lemme voisin

corpus weight

What this shows « panne » siège parmi ces pairs FrequencyWords; la profondeur des fautes est suivie à part dans le graphique d'édition.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026

Visual similarity to commonly confused words

How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).

panne vs pape
60% similar
panne vs paye
60% similar
panne vs pâte
40% similar

Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).

Key facts for panne
PropertyValue
Headwordpanne
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\pan\
Letters5
Frequency rank#4,966
Misspellings tracked5
Confusable pairs20
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Fréquence de l'aimant d'erreurs « panne »

Cette échelle va du noyau du français courant (gauche) jusqu'à la traîne des formes rares (droite).pannese place ici:

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

Les tics avancent en logarithme; chacun est de l'ordre de dix fois plus rare. Dans la même bande de rareté figurent « panneaux » (#4,967), « mépris » (#4,964), « philosophe » (#4,968). Parmi 6,826 lemmes en « P », « panne » est au #4,966. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

A misspelling magnet

The generator records 5 spelling variants around panne (IPA \pan\), anoun. Corpus frequency is #4,966 among 6,826 “P” headwords. Wiktionary lists 6 senses, so context still picks the gloss.

Our generated misspelling index lists 5 likely wrong-spelling variants for panne, with forms such as "apnne", "pane", and "panen". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "pape", "paye", "pâte", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.

Wiktionary doesn't record an etymology for this headword, 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 panne, spelled P-A-N-N-E.

Definition

  1. 1
    Position immobile d’un navire.
  2. 2
    Impossibilité accidentelle et momentanée d’agir ou de fonctionner.
  3. 3
    Important dysfonctionnement physiologique momentané, qui n’est ni une maladie, ni une pathologie.
  4. 4
    Absence de fonctionnement d’une machine de fabrication humaine, qu’elle soit mécanique, électrique ou électronique.
  5. 5
    État anormal d’une unité fonctionnelle la mettant dans l’impossibilité d'accomplir une fonction requise.
  6. 6
    Cessation de l’alimentation, de la fourniture.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

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

  1. À onze heures, la goélette partie de Montevideo ayant joint le "Carmen", ce navire appareilla. On aperçut à quatre heures le "Saint-Fernand", lequel, ayant doublé la queue du banc Ortiz, était en panne pour attendre son camarade [c'est-à-dire le "Carmen"].
  2. Si vous voulez prendre la panne de l’autre bord sous le grand hunier, hallez la barre au vent, amenez le pic, traversez l’écoute du petit foc, et à mesure que le hunier arrive, brassez le petit hunier au vent.

This word in other languages

breakdown(English)avería(Español)Panne(Deutsch)pane(Português)

Common misspellings

Also misspelled as:

  • apnne
  • pane
  • panen
  • pnane
  • ppanne

Misspelling Pattern Breakdown

How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of panne - measured in single-character edits (insert, delete, or substitute a letter). Larger bars are easier to catch; one-edit slips are the sneakiest.

apnne2pane1panen2pnane2ppanne1
Edit distance from "panne"

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 "panne"?
"panne" is spelled P-A-N-N-E. The IPA pronunciation is \pan\.
What does "panne" mean?
As a noun, "panne" means: Position immobile d’un navire.
What words are commonly confused with "panne"?
"panne" is commonly confused with "pape", "paye", "pâte". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "panne"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "panne" is \pan\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "panne" come from?
"panne" 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 "panne", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked French headwords with 5 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

louer#4,955robin#4,983roses#4,984Sonne#4,992

Similar misspelling depth

Headwords with a similar count of attested misspellings (5 here; floor ≥5).

œufs5 variantscave5 variantsGaulle5 variantsroux5 variants

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list