pygmée

\piɡ.me\

/\piɡ.me\/ noun

By · According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA) ·

The verdict

“pygmée” is uncommon French (frequency #63,269 among 6,826 “P” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

#63,269
frequency rank, French
6,826
“P” headwords

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Nom que l’Antiquité donnait à un peuple légendaire d’Afrique ou d’Asie, que l’on disait composé d’hommes d’une coudée de haut.

Corpus desk

Index FR-pygmee · pygmée · French

pygmée · rank #63,269 · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-RARE #63,269
  • LEN-LONG 6 letters
  • VOW-3 3 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-DENSE 6,826
  • PHOTO-FINISH préviendra

Nearest frequency peer: préviendra (-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 « pygmée »

Bande clairsemée: les barres inversent le rang pour que le rare se lise plus court

corpus weight

What this shows Vue de longue queue: où « pygmée » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026
Key facts for pygmée
PropertyValue
Headwordpygmée
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\piɡ.me\
Letters6
Frequency rank#63,269
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Longue queue: rang de « pygmée » en français

Cette échelle va du noyau du français courant (gauche) jusqu'à la traîne des formes rares (droite).pygméetombe dans cette queue de rareté:

#1#100#1K#10K#100K
← used constantlyrarely used →

Les tics avancent en logarithme; chacun est de l'ordre de dix fois plus rare. Voisins rares de la même bande: « préviendra » (#63,268), « pyrotechnique » (#63,270), « préférentiellement » (#63,267). Parmi 6,826 lemmes en « P », « pygmée » est au #63,269. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

pygmée is uncommon French at frequency #63,269 among 6,826 “P” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed \piɡ.me\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 4 senses are on record.

Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for pygmée, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.

Our source data has no etymology on file 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 pygmée, spelled P-Y-G-M-É-E.

Definition

  1. 1
    Nom que l’Antiquité donnait à un peuple légendaire d’Afrique ou d’Asie, que l’on disait composé d’hommes d’une coudée de haut.
  2. 2
    Exonyme des colonisateurs européens à quelques tribus africaines d’hommes de petite taille, qui sont presque des nains.
  3. 3
    Personne de très petite taille.
  4. 4
    Homme sans talent, sans mérite ou sans crédit, qui s’efforce vainement de nuire à quelqu’un d’illustre ou de puissant.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

These source excerpts show how pygmée appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. Les anciens ont dit que les pygmées combattaient contre les grues.
  2. Les Pygmées du Congo.

This word in other languages

pigmy(English)pigmeo(Español)Pygmäe(Deutsch)

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 "pygmée"?
"pygmée" is spelled P-Y-G-M-É-E. The IPA pronunciation is \piɡ.me\.
What does "pygmée" mean?
As a noun, "pygmée" means: Nom que l’Antiquité donnait à un peuple légendaire d’Afrique ou d’Asie, que l’on disait composé d’hommes d’une coudée de haut.
How do you pronounce "pygmée"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "pygmée" is \piɡ.me\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "pygmée" come from?
"pygmée" is a French word. PlainSpell's reference spans five languages -- English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German -- with definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for each.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Similar French words by spelling shape

Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "pygmée", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked French headwords with 6 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

quarte#63,276rankin#63,283pompom#63,250Reding#63,290

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list