peinant

\pɛ.nɑ̃\

/\pɛ.nɑ̃\/ adj

The verdict

“peinant” is uncommon French (frequency #93,082 among 6,826 “P” headwords), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

#93,082
frequency rank, French
6,826
“P” headwords

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Qui peine.

Corpus desk

Index FR-peinant · peinant · French

peinant · rank #93,082 · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-RARE #93,082
  • LEN-LONG 7 letters
  • VOW-3 3 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-DENSE 6,826
  • PHOTO-FINISH peindra

Nearest frequency peer: peindra (+1 rank slots)

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.

Rangs de longue queue près de « peinant »

Bande clairsemée: les barres inversent le rang pour que le rare se lise plus court

corpus weight

What this shows Vue de longue queue: où « peinant » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026
Key facts for peinant
PropertyValue
Headwordpeinant
LanguageFrench
Part of speechAdjective
IPA\pɛ.nɑ̃\
Letters7
Frequency rank#93,082
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Longue queue: rang de « peinant » en français

La fréquence va de la poignée de mots du quotidien (gauche) à la longue queue presque jamais vue (droite).peinanttombe dans cette queue de rareté:

#1#100#1K#10K#100K
← used constantlyrarely used →

L'échelle est logarithmique (chaque tic ≈ 10× plus rare). Voisins rares de la même bande: « peindra » (#93,083), « perlimpinpin » (#93,084), « permissif » (#93,085). Parmi 6,826 lemmes en « P », « peinant » est au #93,082. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

peinant is uncommon French at frequency #93,082 among 6,826 “P” headwords, classed as anadjective, transcribed \pɛ.nɑ̃\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Qui peine.".

No misspelling variants are generated for peinant in our index, typically a sign the spelling maps closely to how the word sounds. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.

Our source data has no etymology on file for this entry, leaving phoneme-to-grapheme mapping as the best guide to its spelling rather than a borrowing history. The correct French form is peinant, spelled P-E-I-N-A-N-T.

Definition

  1. 1
    Qui peine.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

These source excerpts show how peinant appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. Il en revoyait la pauvre coursive noire de charbon, le carré dont on touchait le plafond de la main, avec sa table de bois entaillée de coups de canif et qui sentait la saumure et la gnôle, les cabestans ahanants et peinants, le mât, l’unique mât, si frêle au-dessus de la proue avec les feux vert et rouge au bout de ses bras.
  2. Ni le tumulte plaintif de la nature peinante, ni le cri de souffrance de l’humanité douloureuse ne furent primitivement perçus du cerveau subtil aux écoutes.

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 "peinant"?
"peinant" is spelled P-E-I-N-A-N-T. The IPA pronunciation is \pɛ.nɑ̃\.
What does "peinant" mean?
As an adjective, "peinant" means: Qui peine.
How do you pronounce "peinant"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "peinant" is \pɛ.nɑ̃\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "peinant" come from?
"peinant" is a French word. PlainSpell's reference spans five languages -- English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German -- with definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for each.
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.

Similar French words by spelling shape

Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "peinant", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked French headwords with 7 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list