passant

/\pa.sɑ̃\/ adj

Letters

7 characters

Frequency Rank

#1,671

in French word usage

Misspellings

9

tracked variants

Confusables

20

similar word pairs

passant is anFrenchadj. It means: Par où tout le monde passe. Pronounced \pa.sɑ̃\. It ranks #1,671 in French word frequency. Often confused with payant and paysan.

Key facts for passant
PropertyValue
Headwordpassant
LanguageFrench
Part of speechAdj
IPA\pa.sɑ̃\
Letters7
Frequency rank#1,671
Misspellings tracked9
Confusable pairs20
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Frequency rank visualization

Position of passant in French word frequency (lower rank = more common)

Source: Wordfreq corpus

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

The French entry for passant is 7 letters long, classified as anadj, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \pa.sɑ̃\. Corpus data places it at rank #1,671 in overall French word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 2 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.

Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 9 documented wrong-spelling variants for passant, with forms such as "apssant", "pasant", and "pasasnt". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "payant", "paysan", "pesant", 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 spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct French form is passant, spelled P-A-S-S-A-N-T, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.

Definition

  1. 1
    Par où tout le monde passe.
  2. 2
    Se dit d'un quadrupède représenté de profil et adoptant une posture avec 3 pattes au sol, la patte avant dextre relevée, face tournée vers dextre. La posture est blasonnée quand elle diffère de la position ordinaire de l’animal. Cas particulier, le lion passant est dit léopardé.

This word in other languages

Common misspellings

Also misspelled as: apssant,pasant,pasasnt,passannt,passantt,passatn,passnat,ppassant,psasant

Misspelling Pattern Breakdown

Relative frequency of common misspelling types for passant

Misspelling Variants of "passant"

apssant7pasant6pasasnt7passannt8passantt8passatn7passnat7ppassant8
Misspelling Variants of "passant"

Frequency rank: #1,671 in French

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "passant"?
"passant" is spelled P-A-S-S-A-N-T. The IPA pronunciation is \pa.sɑ̃\.
What does "passant" mean?
As an adj, "passant" means: Par où tout le monde passe.
What words are commonly confused with "passant"?
"passant" is commonly confused with "payant", "paysan", "pesant". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "passant"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "passant" is \pa.sɑ̃\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "passant" come from?
"passant" is a French word. PlainSpell covers definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German.
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.

Nearby French words

Other entries that begin with the letter P in our French index:

Explore PlainSpell

Data Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Frequency data from Wordfreq. Misspellings derived from Hunspell dictionaries.