poltron
\pɔl.tʁɔ̃\
The verdict
“poltron” is uncommon French (frequency #70,120 among 6,826 “P” headwords), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #70,120
- frequency rank, French
- 6,826
- “P” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Qui manque de courage ; qui agit avec lâcheté.
Corpus desk
Index FR-poltron · poltron · French
poltron · rank #70,120 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #70,120
- LEN-LONG 7 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 6,826
- PHOTO-FINISH polarisant
Nearest frequency peer: polarisant (-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 « poltron »
Bande clairsemée: les barres inversent le rang pour que le rare se lise plus court
- poggio
poggio
29,884 corpus weight
- poiriers
poiriers
29,883 corpus weight
- polarisant
polarisant
29,882 corpus weight
- poltron
poltron
29,881 corpus weight
- polyclinique
polyclinique
29,880 corpus weight
- porterons
porterons
29,879 corpus weight
What this shows Vue de longue queue: où « poltron » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | poltron |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | \pɔl.tʁɔ̃\ |
| Letters | 7 |
| Frequency rank | #70,120 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « poltron » en français
Rare enough to double-check
poltron is uncommon French at frequency #70,120 among 6,826 “P” headwords, classed as anadjective, transcribed \pɔl.tʁɔ̃\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
No generated misspelling entries exist for poltron in our index, a sign its spelling follows regular French conventions. This entry stands alone in our confusable dataset, since its spelling is unusual enough that it doesn't cluster with a lookalike.
This headword's origin isn't recorded in our source data, so its spelling is easiest to reason about phoneme by phoneme, absent a documented history. The correct French form is poltron, spelled P-O-L-T-R-O-N.
Definition
- 1Qui manque de courage ; qui agit avec lâcheté.
- 2Qu’on ne peut parvenir à dresser.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how poltron appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
— Ne venez pas plus tard que six heures ; vous savez, ma tante est poltronne, et si nous ne trouvons pas chez M. de *** quelque galant chevalier pour nous reconduire, elle s’en ira avant la nuit tombée.
Ce fut donc le clergé qui, à Plassans, mena la réaction. La noblesse devint son prête-nom, rien de plus ; il se cacha derrière elle, il la gourmanda, la dirigea, parvint même à lui rendre une vie factice. Quand il l’eut amenée à vaincre ses répugnances au point de faire cause commune avec la bourgeoisie, il se crut certain de la victoire. Le terrain était…
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
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Similar French words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "poltron", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked French headwords with 7 letters (nearest by frequency rank).