par le ciel
\paʁ lə sjɛl\
The verdict
“par le ciel” is uncommon French (outside the top frequency list), classed as an interjection. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency French
- 11
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Exclamation qui exprime la surprise ou l’émotion.
Corpus desk
Index FR-par-le-ciel · par le ciel · French
par le ciel · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 11 letters
- VOW-4 4 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "P" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
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.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | par le ciel |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Interjection |
| IPA | \paʁ lə sjɛl\ |
| Letters | 11 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « par le ciel » en français
Rare enough to double-check
par le ciel is uncommon French outside the top frequency list, classed as aninterjection, transcribed \paʁ lə sjɛl\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Exclamation qui exprime la surprise ou l’émotion.".
The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for par le ciel, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable French rules. Our dataset records no confusable match here, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
Wiktionary doesn't record an etymology for this headword, 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 le ciel, spelled P-A-R- -L-E- -C-I-E-L.
Definition
- 1Exclamation qui exprime la surprise ou l’émotion.
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how par le ciel appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
La Marquise. – Oui, par le ciel ! oui, j’ai fait un rêve ; hélas ! les rois seuls n’en font jamais : toutes les chimères de leurs caprices se transforment en réalités, et leurs cauchemars eux-mêmes se changent en marbre !
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.