petit mot
\pə.ti mo\
The verdict
“petit mot” 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) - Catégorie grammaticale en latin, ancêtre de l’article.
Corpus desk
Index FR-petit-mot · petit mot · French
petit mot · 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 mot |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \pə.ti mo\ |
| Letters | 9 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « petit mot » en français
Rare enough to double-check
petit mot is uncommon French outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun, transcribed \pə.ti mo\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 3 senses are on record.
No misspelling variants are generated for petit mot in our index, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, since no other headword is close enough in sound or shape to pair with it.
No documented word history exists for this headword, so its spelling is best explained by sound-to-letter mapping rather than etymology. The correct French form is petit mot, spelled P-E-T-I-T- -M-O-T.
Definition
- 1Catégorie grammaticale en latin, ancêtre de l’article.
- 2Mot-outil.
- 3Phrase courte, critique ou blessante.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how petit mot appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Régnier-Desmarais, Bussier, Port-Royal et l’académie de 1772 l’appelaient particule. Suivant Lhomond, Lévisac, l’abbé Guillon et Girault-Duvivier, c’est un petit mot.
En effet, si le terme particula est bien présent chez les grammairiens latins, il ne désigne pas encore le « petit mot » souvent jugé accessoire, mais difficile à classer, que les grammairiens de l’âge classique reconnaîtront.
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.