quay

\kiː\

/\kiː\/ noun

The verdict

“quay” is uncommon French (frequency #54,192 among 352 “Q” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

#54,192
frequency rank, French
352
“Q” headwords

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Quai d’un port.

Corpus desk

Index FR-quay · quay · French

quay · rank #54,192 · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-RARE #54,192
  • LEN-MID 4 letters
  • VOW-3 3 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-MID 352
  • PHOTO-FINISH qqc

Nearest frequency peer: qqc (-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 « quay »

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 « quay » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026
Key facts for quay
PropertyValue
Headwordquay
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\kiː\
Letters4
Frequency rank#54,192
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Longue queue: rang de « quay » en français

La fréquence va de la poignée de mots du quotidien (gauche) à la longue queue presque jamais vue (droite).quaytombe 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: « qqc » (#54,191), « Quevilly » (#54,193), « péan » (#54,190). Parmi 352 lemmes en « Q », « quay » est au #54,192. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

quay is uncommon French at frequency #54,192 among 352 “Q” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed \kiː\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Quai d’un port.".

No misspelling variants are generated for quay in our index, typically a sign the spelling maps closely to how the word sounds. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, suggesting its spelling stands apart enough that readers rarely confuse it with something else.

Our source data has no etymology on file for this entry, so any spelling logic here comes from how the word's sounds map to letters, not a documented origin story. The correct French form is quay, spelled Q-U-A-Y.

Definition

  1. 1
    Quai d’un port.

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 "quay"?
"quay" is spelled Q-U-A-Y. The IPA pronunciation is \kiː\.
What does "quay" mean?
As a noun, "quay" means: Quai d’un port.
How do you pronounce "quay"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "quay" is \kiː\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "quay" come from?
"quay" is a French word. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for this and other words across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German on PlainSpell.
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 "quay", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked French headwords with 4 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list