pélican

/\pe.li.kɑ̃\/ noun

Letters

7 characters

Frequency Rank

#46,974

in French word usage

Misspellings

11

tracked variants

Confusables

0

similar word pairs

pélican is aFrenchnoun. It means: Oiseau palmipède aquatique, à bec long, large et plat, et dont la mandibule inférieure présente une sorte de poche extensible dans laquelle il met en réserve des aliments pour lui et pour ses petits. Pronounced \pe.li.kɑ̃\.

Key facts for pélican
PropertyValue
Headwordpélican
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\pe.li.kɑ̃\
Letters7
Frequency rank#46,974
Misspellings tracked11
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Frequency rank visualization

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

Source: Wordfreq corpus

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

The French entry for pélican is 7 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \pe.li.kɑ̃\. Corpus data places it at rank #46,974 in overall French word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it.Wiktionary records 4 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.

Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 11 documented wrong-spelling variants for pélican, with forms such as "pelican", "pléican", and "ppélican". 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 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.

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 pélican, spelled P-É-L-I-C-A-N, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.

Definition

  1. 1
    Oiseau palmipède aquatique, à bec long, large et plat, et dont la mandibule inférieure présente une sorte de poche extensible dans laquelle il met en réserve des aliments pour lui et pour ses petits.
  2. 2
    Meuble représentant l’animal du même nom dans les armoiries. Il est généralement représenté sur son aire se déchirant la poitrine avec son bec pour nourrir de son sang trois oisillons, ses ailes sont éployées. Le sang est représenté par des gouttes. On peut rencontrer deux interprétations. Selon la première, les gouttes sont appelées piété. Selon la seconde, la couleur des gouttes est donnée par la qualification d’ensanglanté ou dégoutant. Voir piété.
  3. 3
    Cornue à col recourbé.
  4. 4
    Instrument de chirurgie qui sert à arracher les dents.

This word in other languages

Common misspellings

Also misspelled as: pelican,pléican,ppélican,péilcan,pélcian,péliacn,pélicann,péliccan,pélicna,péllican,éplican

Misspelling Pattern Breakdown

Relative frequency of common misspelling types for pélican

Misspelling Variants of "pélican"

pelican7pléican7ppélican8péilcan7pélcian7péliacn7pélicann8péliccan8
Misspelling Variants of "pélican"

Frequency rank: #46,974 in French

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "pélican"?
"pélican" is spelled P-É-L-I-C-A-N. The IPA pronunciation is \pe.li.kɑ̃\.
What does "pélican" mean?
As a noun, "pélican" means: Oiseau palmipède aquatique, à bec long, large et plat, et dont la mandibule inférieure présente une sorte de poche extensible dans laquelle il met en réserve des aliments pour lui et pour ses petits.
What are common misspellings of "pélican"?
Common misspellings include "pelican", "pléican", "ppélican", "péilcan", "pélcian". The correct spelling is "pélican".
How do you pronounce "pélican"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "pélican" is \pe.li.kɑ̃\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "pélican" come from?
"pélican" 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.