principale
\pʁɛ̃.si.pal\
The verdict
“principale” is a regularly-used French word, ranked #1,885 in French word frequency and used as a noun.
- #1,885
- frequency rank, French
- 10
- letters
- 15
- tracked misspellings
- 5
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Femme qui, en France, assure la direction d’un collège.
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 | principale |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \pʁɛ̃.si.pal\ |
| Letters | 10 |
| Frequency rank | #1,885 |
| Misspellings tracked | 15 |
| Confusable pairs | 5 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “principale” sits in French frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The French entry for principale is 10 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \pʁɛ̃.si.pal\. Corpus data places it at rank #1,885 in overall French word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "Femme qui, en France, assure la direction d’un collège.".
Our generated misspelling index lists 15 likely wrong-spelling variants for principale, with forms such as "pirncipale", "pprincipale", and "pricnipale". Each variant is a distinct typo pattern an edit-distance generator flags, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution. It also participates in 5 confusable-pair relationships, "principe", "principaux", "principales", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, so its spelling is easiest explained by how it's pronounced rather than where it came from. The correct French form is principale, spelled P-R-I-N-C-I-P-A-L-E.
Definition
- 1Femme qui, en France, assure la direction d’un collège.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: pirncipale,pprincipale,pricnipale,princcipale,princiaple,principael,principalle,principlae,princippale,princpiale,prinicpale,prinncipale,prnicipale,prrincipale,rpincipale
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of principale - expressed in single-character edits (insert, delete, or swap one letter). Bigger bars stand out at a glance; a one-edit slip is the hardest to catch.
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 "principale"?
What does "principale" mean?
What words are commonly confused with "principale"?
How do you pronounce "principale"?
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Is PlainSpell free to use?
Using “principale”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct French spelling is P-R-I-N-C-I-P-A-L-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as \pʁɛ̃.si.pal\ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “principe” - see the side-by-side comparison. principale vs principe
- 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.