quintal

\kɛ̃.tal\

/\kɛ̃.tal\/ noun

The verdict

“quintal” is uncommon French (frequency #52,297 among 352 “Q” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

#52,297
frequency rank, French
352
“Q” headwords

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Ancienne mesure de masse de 100 livres.

Corpus desk

Index FR-quintal · quintal · French

quintal · rank #52,297 · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-RARE #52,297
  • LEN-LONG 7 letters
  • VOW-3 3 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-MID 352
  • PHOTO-FINISH quinquagénaire

Nearest frequency peer: quinquagénaire (-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 « quintal »

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

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026
Key facts for quintal
PropertyValue
Headwordquintal
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\kɛ̃.tal\
Letters7
Frequency rank#52,297
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Longue queue: rang de « quintal » en français

Cette échelle va du noyau du français courant (gauche) jusqu'à la traîne des formes rares (droite).quintaltombe 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: « quinquagénaire » (#52,296), « quadragénaire » (#52,295), « rageur » (#52,299). Parmi 352 lemmes en « Q », « quintal » est au #52,297. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

quintal is uncommon French at frequency #52,297 among 352 “Q” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed \kɛ̃.tal\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 3 senses are on record.

quintal has no tracked misspelling variants, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. This entry stands alone in our confusable dataset, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.

No borrowing history is documented for this entry, leaving phoneme-to-grapheme mapping as the best guide to its spelling rather than a borrowing history. The correct French form is quintal, spelled Q-U-I-N-T-A-L.

Definition

  1. 1
    Ancienne mesure de masse de 100 livres.
  2. 2
    Unité de mesure de masse qui correspond à 100 kilogrammes (symbole : q).
  3. 3
    Unité de mesure de masse anglo-saxonne, valant soit 100 livres (quintal court ou cental) ou 112 livres (quintal fort).

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

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

  1. Le Sénégal peut fournir , année commune , cinquante captifs, quatre mille cuirs, douze cens quintaux de gomme, & vingt quintaux de morfil.
  2. Ils emportaient pour trois mois de vivres, c’est-à-dire trois quintaux de farine, cinquante livres de riz, cinquante livres de farine d’avoine, un quintal de viande de cheval séchée.

Synonyms

This word in other languages

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 "quintal"?
"quintal" is spelled Q-U-I-N-T-A-L. The IPA pronunciation is \kɛ̃.tal\.
What does "quintal" mean?
As a noun, "quintal" means: Ancienne mesure de masse de 100 livres.
How do you pronounce "quintal"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "quintal" is \kɛ̃.tal\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "quintal" come from?
"quintal" 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 "quintal", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked French headwords with 7 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list