pilchard
\pil.ʃaʁ\
The verdict
“pilchard” is uncommon French (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency French
- 8
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Grande sardine de la Manche qui se vend en boîtes comme les harengs ou les maquereaux. — Sardina pilchardus (wikispecies)
Corpus desk
Index FR-pilchard · pilchard · French
pilchard · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-LONG 8 letters
- VOW-2 2 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 | pilchard |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \pil.ʃaʁ\ |
| Letters | 8 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « pilchard » en français
Rare enough to double-check
pilchard is uncommon French outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun, transcribed \pil.ʃaʁ\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Grande sardine de la Manche qui se vend en boîtes comme les harengs ou les maquereaux. — Sardina pilchardus (wikispecies)".
No generated misspelling entries exist for pilchard in our index, a sign its spelling follows regular French conventions. Our dataset records no confusable match here, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.
No borrowing history is documented 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 pilchard, spelled P-I-L-C-H-A-R-D.
Definition
- 1Grande sardine de la Manche qui se vend en boîtes comme les harengs ou les maquereaux. — Sardina pilchardus (wikispecies)
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how pilchard appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Qu’est-ce maintenant que le pilchard ? Ce poisson (clupea pilchardus) appartient bien à la famille des harengs; mais il s’en détache par quelques caractères extérieurs : il a la tête plus courte, le corps plus trapu, la nageoire dorsale placée plus en avant, vers le centre de gravité; mais il est surtout recouvert de plus longues écailles que le hareng or…
Les écailles miroitantes, les nageoires lumineuses, les queues étincelantes, les yeux nacrés des pilchards formaient une grande masse de lumière liquide qui flottait, palpitait, ondulait, et s'avançait vers les filets, tumultueuse et précipitée.
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.