petit mal
\pə.ti mal\
The verdict
“petit mal” is uncommon French (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency French
- 9
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Absence épileptique.
Corpus desk
Index FR-petit-mal · petit mal · French
petit mal · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-LONG 9 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "P" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
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.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | petit mal |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \pə.ti mal\ |
| Letters | 9 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « petit mal » en français
Rare enough to double-check
petit mal is uncommon French outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun, transcribed \pə.ti mal\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Absence épileptique.".
petit mal has no tracked misspelling variants, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. No confusable counterpart is on file for this word, which typically means the spelling is too distinctive to be mistaken for another word.
This entry carries no recorded etymology, so its spelling is easiest to reason about phoneme by phoneme, absent a documented history. The correct French form is petit mal, spelled P-E-T-I-T- -M-A-L.
Definition
- 1Absence épileptique.
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.