piranha

\pi.ʁa.na\

/\pi.ʁa.na\/ noun

The verdict

“piranha” is uncommon French (frequency #61,036 among 6,826 “P” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

#61,036
frequency rank, French
6,826
“P” headwords

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Poisson carnivore d’eau douce de la famille des characidés, vivant dans les rivières d’Amérique du Sud.

Corpus desk

Index FR-piranha · piranha · French

piranha · rank #61,036 · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-RARE #61,036
  • LEN-LONG 7 letters
  • VOW-3 3 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-DENSE 6,826
  • PHOTO-FINISH piquez

Nearest frequency peer: piquez (-1 rank slots)

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.

Rangs de longue queue près de « piranha »

Bande clairsemée: les barres inversent le rang pour que le rare se lise plus court

corpus weight

What this shows Vue de longue queue: où « piranha » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026
Key facts for piranha
PropertyValue
Headwordpiranha
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\pi.ʁa.na\
Letters7
Frequency rank#61,036
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Longue queue: rang de « piranha » en français

La fréquence va de la poignée de mots du quotidien (gauche) à la longue queue presque jamais vue (droite).piranhatombe dans cette queue de rareté:

#1#100#1K#10K#100K
← used constantlyrarely used →

L'axe est logarithmique: chaque tic marque environ dix fois moins de fréquence. Voisins rares de la même bande: « piquez » (#61,035), « planificateur » (#61,037), « pillant » (#61,034). Parmi 6,826 lemmes en « P », « piranha » est au #61,036. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

piranha is uncommon French at frequency #61,036 among 6,826 “P” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed \pi.ʁa.na\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Poisson carnivore d’eau douce de la famille des characidés, vivant dans les rivières d’Amérique du Sud.".

No generated misspelling entries exist for piranha in our index, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable French rules. Our dataset records no confusable match here, which usually means its spelling is distinct enough that readers don't reach for a similar-looking word instead.

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 piranha, spelled P-I-R-A-N-H-A.

Definition

  1. 1
    Poisson carnivore d’eau douce de la famille des characidés, vivant dans les rivières d’Amérique du Sud.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

These source excerpts show how piranha appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. Sa large bouche béante dévoile des dents effilées faisant penser à une mâchoire de piranha.
  2. L’homme de 30 ans est mort noyé après avoir été dévoré par des piranhas, alors qu’il tentait de fuir un essaim d’abeilles, rapporte le média brésilien Estado de Minas.

Synonyms

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); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 French corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "piranha"?
"piranha" is spelled P-I-R-A-N-H-A. The IPA pronunciation is \pi.ʁa.na\.
What does "piranha" mean?
As a noun, "piranha" means: Poisson carnivore d’eau douce de la famille des characidés, vivant dans les rivières d’Amérique du Sud.
How do you pronounce "piranha"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "piranha" is \pi.ʁa.na\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "piranha" come from?
"piranha" is a French word. PlainSpell covers definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Similar French words by spelling shape

Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "piranha", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked French headwords with 7 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list