propre à rien
\pʁɔ.pʁ‿a ʁjɛ̃\
The verdict
“propre à rien” is uncommon French (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency French
- 13
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Personne incapable de réussir quoi que ce soit.
Corpus desk
Index FR-propre-a-rien · propre à rien · French
propre à rien · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 13 letters
- VOW-5 5 vowels
- 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 | propre à rien |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \pʁɔ.pʁ‿a ʁjɛ̃\ |
| Letters | 13 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « propre à rien » en français
Rare enough to double-check
propre à rien is uncommon French outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun, transcribed \pʁɔ.pʁ‿a ʁjɛ̃\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Personne incapable de réussir quoi que ce soit.".
No misspelling variants are generated for propre à rien in our index, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable French rules. This entry stands alone in our confusable dataset, which typically means the spelling is too distinctive to be mistaken for another word.
Wiktionary doesn't record an etymology for this headword, so its spelling is easiest to reason about phoneme by phoneme, absent a documented history. The correct French form is propre à rien, spelled P-R-O-P-R-E- -À- -R-I-E-N.
Definition
- 1Personne incapable de réussir quoi que ce soit.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how propre à rien appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Ne désire pas une nombreuse descendance de propres à rien et ne mets pas ta joie dans des fils impies.
– Holà ! fit-il d'une voix de tonnerre. J'aperçois ici un tas de propres à rien qui feraient mieux d'être à leur travail.
Synonyms
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.