patchouli
\pat.ʃu.li\
The verdict
“patchouli” is uncommon French (frequency #72,600 among 248,534 “P” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #72,600
- frequency rank, French
- 248,534
- “P” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Nom usuel de Pogostemon cablin, plante herbacée de la famille des Lamiacées originaire d’Inde et du sud del’Asie, remarquable par son odeur aromatique.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | patchouli |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \pat.ʃu.li\ |
| Letters | 9 |
| Frequency rank | #72,600 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “patchouli” sits in French frequency
Rare enough to double-check
patchouli is uncommon French at frequency #72,600 among 248,534 “P” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed \pat.ʃu.li\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
Zero misspellings are on record for patchouli in our index, suggesting the orthography follows predictable French patterns. We don't track a confusable pairing for this entry, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
This headword's origin isn't recorded in our source data, 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 patchouli, spelled P-A-T-C-H-O-U-L-I.
Definition
- 1Nom usuel de Pogostemon cablin, plante herbacée de la famille des Lamiacées originaire d’Inde et du sud del’Asie, remarquable par son odeur aromatique.
- 2Parfum extrait des feuilles et des tiges de cette plante.
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
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Using “patchouli”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct French spelling is P-A-T-C-H-O-U-L-I - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as \pat.ʃu.li\ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Browse more French words and confusable pairs in the same reference. French words
Other uncommon French words near this rank
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.