plan B
\plɑ̃ be\
The verdict
“plan B” is uncommon French (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency French
- 6
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Solution alternative au plan principal quand celui-ci a échoué.
Corpus desk
Index FR-plan-b · plan B · French
plan B · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-LONG 6 letters
- VOW-1 1 vowel
- 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 | plan B |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \plɑ̃ be\ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « plan B » en français
Rare enough to double-check
plan B is uncommon French outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun, transcribed \plɑ̃ be\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
plan B doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. This entry stands alone in our confusable dataset, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.
No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, 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 plan B, spelled P-L-A-N- -B.
Definition
- 1Solution alternative au plan principal quand celui-ci a échoué.
- 2Plan de secours, solution pour sortir d’une situation fâcheuse ou périlleuse.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how plan B appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Il y a deux explications possibles à un ultimatum du type « c'est à prendre ou à laisser » : soit votre interlocuteur possède un excellent plan B ; soit il ne dispose pas d'arguments solides en soutien de sa position et il bluffe pour vous intimider.
Nouvel épisode dans le feuilleton de la succession de Raymond Domenech. En cas de refus du grand favori, Laurent Blanc, la Fédération aurait déjà un plan B dans sa manche : un ticket « made in DTN », composé d'Erick Mombaerts et Alain Boghossian, pourrait prendre les rênes de l'équipe de France.
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.