pauvre comme la gale
\povʁ kɔm la ɡal\
The verdict
“pauvre comme la gale” is uncommon French (outside the top frequency list), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency French
- 20
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Très pauvre.
Corpus desk
Index FR-pauvre-comme-la-gale · pauvre comme la gale · French
pauvre comme la gale · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 20 letters
- VOW-8 8 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 | pauvre comme la gale |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | \povʁ kɔm la ɡal\ |
| Letters | 20 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « pauvre comme la gale » en français
Rare enough to double-check
pauvre comme la gale is uncommon French outside the top frequency list, classed as anadjective, transcribed \povʁ kɔm la ɡal\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Très pauvre.".
We couldn't generate a plausible misspelling set for pauvre comme la gale, typically a sign the spelling maps closely to how the word sounds. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
Our source data has no etymology on file 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 pauvre comme la gale, spelled P-A-U-V-R-E- -C-O-M-M-E- -L-A- -G-A-L-E.
Definition
- 1Très pauvre.
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how pauvre comme la gale appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
T'es jalouse, lançait-elle à Edna. T'as jamais eu que des cavaliers qui étaient pauvre comme la gale.
Synonyms
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). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.