petit-enfant
\pə.ti.t‿ɑ̃.fɑ̃\
The verdict
“petit-enfant” is outside the top-ranked French vocabulary, used as a noun - the kind of word writers most often double-check.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency French
- 12
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Enfant de son fils ou de sa fille. Note d’usage : Ce mot est peu usité au singulier, car on précise généralement petit-fils ou petite-fille. Il est en revanche utilisé au pluriel comme forme neutre...
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | petit-enfant |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \pə.ti.t‿ɑ̃.fɑ̃\ |
| Letters | 12 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “petit-enfant” sits in French frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The French entry for petit-enfant is 12 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \pə.ti.t‿ɑ̃.fɑ̃\. It sits outside the most-frequent rank tiers, which is often why uncommon words generate more spelling variants per reader. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "Enfant de son fils ou de sa fille. Note d’usage : Ce mot est peu usité au singulier, car on précise généralement petit-fils ou petite-fille. Il est en revanche utilisé au pluriel comme forme neutre...".
Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for petit-enfant, a straightforward case of a spelling with little room for common typos. Our dataset records no confusable match here, 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 petit-enfant, spelled P-E-T-I-T---E-N-F-A-N-T.
Definition
- 1Enfant de son fils ou de sa fille. Note d’usage : Ce mot est peu usité au singulier, car on précise généralement petit-fils ou petite-fille. Il est en revanche utilisé au pluriel comme forme neutre de petits-fils et petites-filles.
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). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “petit-enfant”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct French spelling is P-E-T-I-T---E-N-F-A-N-T - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as \pə.ti.t‿ɑ̃.fɑ̃\ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Browse more French words and confusable pairs in the same reference. French words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.