pestilence
\pɛs.ti.lɑ̃s\
The verdict
“pestilence” is uncommon French (frequency #84,164 among 6,826 “P” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #84,164
- frequency rank, French
- 6,826
- “P” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Peste répandue dans un pays.
Corpus desk
Index FR-pestilence · pestilence · French
pestilence · rank #84,164 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #84,164
- LEN-MEGA 10 letters
- VOW-4 4 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 6,826
- PHOTO-FINISH pestiféré
Nearest frequency peer: pestiféré (-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 « pestilence »
Bande clairsemée: les barres inversent le rang pour que le rare se lise plus court
- pesantes
pesantes
15,840 corpus weight
- Pessah
Pessah
15,839 corpus weight
- pestiféré
pestiféré
15,838 corpus weight
- pestilence
pestilence
15,837 corpus weight
- pharmaceuti…
pharmaceutical
15,836 corpus weight
- phaéton
phaéton
15,835 corpus weight
What this shows Vue de longue queue: où « pestilence » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | pestilence |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \pɛs.ti.lɑ̃s\ |
| Letters | 10 |
| Frequency rank | #84,164 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « pestilence » en français
Rare enough to double-check
pestilence is uncommon French at frequency #84,164 among 6,826 “P” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed \pɛs.ti.lɑ̃s\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 3 senses are on record.
pestilence has no tracked misspelling variants, a straightforward case of a spelling with little room for common typos. 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.
Wiktionary doesn't record an etymology for this headword, 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 pestilence, spelled P-E-S-T-I-L-E-N-C-E.
Definition
- 1Peste répandue dans un pays.
- 2Corruption de l’air.
- 3Ce qui est funeste ou pernicieux.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how pestilence appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
[…] tandis qu’Aix a toute les apparence d’une ville seigneuriale éloignée de ces remous, de ces agglomérations qui engendrent la pestilence.
Cette pestilence des pestilences, le nationalisme, a empoisonné la fleur de notre culture européenne.
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
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Similar French words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "pestilence", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked French headwords with 10 letters (nearest by frequency rank).