Petit frère
\pə.ti fʁɛʁ\
The verdict
“Petit frère” is outside the top-ranked French vocabulary, used as a proper noun - the kind of word writers most often double-check.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency French
- 11
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Surnom donné à Bernard Bourreau.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | Petit frère |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Proper noun |
| IPA | \pə.ti fʁɛʁ\ |
| Letters | 11 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “Petit frère” sits in French frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The French entry for Petit frère is 11 letters long, classified as a proper noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \pə.ti fʁɛʁ\. 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: "Surnom donné à Bernard Bourreau.".
We couldn't generate a plausible misspelling set for Petit frère, 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 typically means the spelling is too distinctive to be mistaken for another word.
This headword's origin isn't recorded in our source data, leaving phoneme-to-grapheme mapping as the best guide to its spelling rather than a borrowing history. The correct French form is Petit frère, spelled P-E-T-I-T- -F-R-È-R-E.
Definition
- 1Surnom donné à Bernard Bourreau.
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 frère”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct French spelling is P-E-T-I-T- -F-R-È-R-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as \pə.ti fʁɛʁ\ (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.