permafrost

\pɛʁ.ma.fʁɔst\

/\pɛʁ.ma.fʁɔst\/ noun

The verdict

“permafrost” is uncommon French (frequency #67,769 among 6,826 “P” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

#67,769
frequency rank, French
6,826
“P” headwords

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Couche de sol gelé en permanence.

Corpus desk

Index FR-permafrost · permafrost · French

permafrost · rank #67,769 · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-RARE #67,769
  • LEN-MEGA 10 letters
  • VOW-3 3 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-DENSE 6,826
  • PHOTO-FINISH pellet

Nearest frequency peer: pellet (-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 « permafrost »

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 « permafrost » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026
Key facts for permafrost
PropertyValue
Headwordpermafrost
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\pɛʁ.ma.fʁɔst\
Letters10
Frequency rank#67,769
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Longue queue: rang de « permafrost » en français

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

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

Les tics avancent en logarithme; chacun est de l'ordre de dix fois plus rare. Voisins rares de la même bande: « pellet » (#67,768), « PFC » (#67,770), « payerai » (#67,767). Parmi 6,826 lemmes en « P », « permafrost » est au #67,769. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

permafrost is uncommon French at frequency #67,769 among 6,826 “P” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed \pɛʁ.ma.fʁɔst\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Couche de sol gelé en permanence.".

Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for permafrost, suggesting the orthography follows predictable French patterns. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.

This entry's etymology isn't recorded, so its spelling is easiest to reason about phoneme by phoneme, absent a documented history. The correct French form is permafrost, spelled P-E-R-M-A-F-R-O-S-T.

Definition

  1. 1
    Couche de sol gelé en permanence.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

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

  1. Le permafrost représente environ 20 % de la surface de terre du monde, 25 millions de km², dont un quart des terres émergées de l’hémisphère Nord.
  2. Les petites fentes de gel et les nombreuses déformations dues à la géliturbation indiquent un climat très froid ; l’humidité (taches d’hydromorphie) était sans doute favorisée par la présence d’un permafrost discontinu.

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); 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 "permafrost"?
"permafrost" is spelled P-E-R-M-A-F-R-O-S-T. The IPA pronunciation is \pɛʁ.ma.fʁɔst\.
What does "permafrost" mean?
As a noun, "permafrost" means: Couche de sol gelé en permanence.
How do you pronounce "permafrost"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "permafrost" is \pɛʁ.ma.fʁɔst\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "permafrost" come from?
"permafrost" 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.

Similar French words by spelling shape

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

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked French headwords with 10 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list