postulat
\pɔs.ty.la\
The verdict
“postulat” is a moderately-common French word, ranked #22,038 in French word frequency and used as a noun.
- #22,038
- frequency rank, French
- 8
- letters
- 12
- tracked misspellings
- 5
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Proposition que le géomètre demande qu’on lui accorde au commencement d’une discussion, bien qu’elle ne soit ni démontrée ni évidente, parce qu’il ne voit pas d’autre principe auquel il puisse ratt...
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | postulat |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \pɔs.ty.la\ |
| Letters | 8 |
| Frequency rank | #22,038 |
| Misspellings tracked | 12 |
| Confusable pairs | 5 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “postulat” sits in French frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The French entry for postulat is 8 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \pɔs.ty.la\. Corpus data places it at rank #22,038 in overall French word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. Wiktionary records 4 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 12 likely wrong-spelling variants for postulat, with forms such as "opstulat", "posstulat", and "postluat". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It also participates in 5 confusable-pair relationships, "postulé", "postuler", "postulats", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
No borrowing history is documented for this entry, so its spelling is easiest to reason about phoneme by phoneme, absent a documented history. The correct French form is postulat, spelled P-O-S-T-U-L-A-T.
Definition
- 1Proposition que le géomètre demande qu’on lui accorde au commencement d’une discussion, bien qu’elle ne soit ni démontrée ni évidente, parce qu’il ne voit pas d’autre principe auquel il puisse rattacher une vérité ou des vérités qu’on ne saurait mettre en doute. Autrement dit une proposition première indémontrable ou indémontrée, et que le mathématicien demande au lecteur d’accepter. Le postulat n’est pas forcément évident, contrairement à l’axiome.
- 2Tout principe d’un système déductif qui n’est ni une définition ni une proposition assez évidente pour qu’il soit impossible de la mettre en doute.
- 3Période qui précède le noviciat, dans un ordre ou une communauté religieuse.
- 4Désigne aussi le centre d’hébergement, la maison où résident les postulants.
Synonyms
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: opstulat,posstulat,postluat,posttulat,postualt,postulatt,postullat,postulta,posutlat,potsulat,ppostulat,psotulat
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of postulat - counted as single-character edits (an insertion, a deletion, or a substituted letter). The larger the bar, the easier the typo is to spot; one-edit slips are the ones that sneak past readers.
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 "postulat"?
What does "postulat" mean?
What words are commonly confused with "postulat"?
How do you pronounce "postulat"?
What language does "postulat" come from?
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Using “postulat”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct French spelling is P-O-S-T-U-L-A-T - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as \pɔs.ty.la\ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “postulé” - see the side-by-side comparison. postulat vs postulé
- Browse more French words and confusable pairs in the same reference. French words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.