périphrase

/\pe.ʁi.fʁaz\/ noun

Letters

10 characters

Frequency Rank

#71,836

in French word usage

Misspellings

0

tracked variants

Confusables

0

similar word pairs

périphrase is aFrenchnoun. It means: Figure de style qui consiste à expliquer par une locution un nom, un objet, un lieu… ou dont on se sert pour exprimer ce qu’on ne veut pas dire directement, par exemple: L’oiseau de Jupiter pour l’... Pronounced \pe.ʁi.fʁaz\.

Key facts for périphrase
PropertyValue
Headwordpériphrase
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\pe.ʁi.fʁaz\
Letters10
Frequency rank#71,836
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Frequency rank visualization

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

Source: Wordfreq corpus

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

The French entry for périphrase is 10 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \pe.ʁi.fʁaz\. Corpus data places it at rank #71,836 in overall French word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it.Wiktionary records 2 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.

No frequent misspelling variants are recorded for périphrase in our index, suggesting the orthography either follows predictable French patterns or the word is uncommon enough that typo corpora lack signal.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 périphrase, spelled P-É-R-I-P-H-R-A-S-E, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.

Definition

  1. 1
    Figure de style qui consiste à expliquer par une locution un nom, un objet, un lieu… ou dont on se sert pour exprimer ce qu’on ne veut pas dire directement, par exemple: L’oiseau de Jupiter pour l’aigle, les portes du matin pour l’orient, la ville lumière pour Paris, le roi soleil pour Louis XIV.
  2. 2
    Construction grammaticale qui, dans les langues analytiques, utilise plusieurs éléments au lieu d’un seul signifiant pour exprimer un signifié.

This word in other languages

Frequency rank: #71,836 in French

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "périphrase"?
"périphrase" is spelled P-É-R-I-P-H-R-A-S-E. The IPA pronunciation is \pe.ʁi.fʁaz\.
What does "périphrase" mean?
As a noun, "périphrase" means: Figure de style qui consiste à expliquer par une locution un nom, un objet, un lieu… ou dont on se sert pour exprimer ce qu’on ne veut pas dire directement, par exemple: L’oiseau de Jupiter pour l’...
How do you pronounce "périphrase"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "périphrase" is \pe.ʁi.fʁaz\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "périphrase" come from?
"périphrase" 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:

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