photopile
\fo.to.pil\
The verdict
“photopile” 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) - Appareil transformant un rayonnement lumineux en électricité.
Corpus desk
Index FR-photopile · photopile · French
photopile · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-LONG 9 letters
- VOW-4 4 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 | photopile |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \fo.to.pil\ |
| Letters | 9 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « photopile » en français
Rare enough to double-check
photopile is uncommon French outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun, transcribed \fo.to.pil\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
photopile doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. Our dataset records no confusable match here, since no other headword is close enough in sound or shape to pair with it.
This entry's etymology isn't recorded, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. The correct French form is photopile, spelled P-H-O-T-O-P-I-L-E.
Definition
- 1Appareil transformant un rayonnement lumineux en électricité.
- 2Organe qui transforme la lumière en signal électrique.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how photopile appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Avec sa centrale de photopiles, réparties en antennes brillantes de plusieurs centaines de mètres carrés de surface utile, le satellite représentait le sommet de la technique spatiale humaine et contrôlait à lui seul la faune de tout l’hémisphère Ouest.
Les photopiles sont couramment utilisées pour actionner des relais mettant en marche un système lorsque se trouve intercepté un faisceau lumineux atteignant l’appareil (mise en marche automatique d’escaliers mécaniques, de portes, d’un signal d’alarme, d’appareils de comptage).
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.