par
\paʁ\
The verdict
“par” is in the everyday core of French, ranked #28 in French word frequency and used as a preposition.
- #28
- frequency rank, French
- 3
- letters
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Sert à marquer le mouvement et le passage.
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 | par |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Preposition |
| IPA | \paʁ\ |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #28 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “par” sits in French frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The French entry for par is 3 letters long, classified as a preposition, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \paʁ\. Corpus data places it at rank #28 in overall French word frequency, putting it firmly in the everyday core of the language. Wiktionary records 15 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
No misspelling variants are generated for par in our index, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable French rules. 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, so any spelling logic here comes from how the word's sounds map to letters, not a documented origin story. The correct French form is par, spelled P-A-R.
Definition
- 1Sert à marquer le mouvement et le passage.
- 2S’emploie aussi au sens de en, dans, avec l’idée de mouvement dans l’espace indiqué.
- 3À travers.
- 4À la hauteur de.
- 5Sert à indiquer la position d’un bâtiment, d’un objet, par rapport à un autre bâtiment ou à un autre objet.
- 6Sert à désigner la partie qu’on saisit.
- 7Sert à désigner l’agent. — Note d’usage : Il régit en cet emploi le complément des verbes passifs :
- 8Sert à désigner la cause, le motif.
- 9Sert à désigner le moyen :
- 10Sert à désigner l’instrument, la manière.
- 11Indique l’ordre et la distribution.
- 12Sert à remplacer le gérondif par l'infinitif, dans des phrases où le verbe conjugué est commencer, continuer ou finir.
- 13S'emploie pour affirmer, jurer, conjurer.
- 14Durant.
- 15Sert de particule interjective entrant dans les exclamations faisant intervenir le nom d’une divinité.
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 "par"?
What does "par" mean?
What words are commonly confused with "par"?
How do you pronounce "par"?
What language does "par" come from?
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Using “par”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct French spelling is P-A-R - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as \paʁ\ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “pu” - see the side-by-side comparison. par vs pu
- Browse more French words and confusable pairs in the same reference. French words
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.