rabat-joie
\ʁa.ba.ʒwa\
The verdict
“rabat-joie” is uncommon French (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency French
- 10
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Personne triste ou ennemie de la joie des autres.
Corpus desk
Index FR-rabat-joie · rabat-joie · French
rabat-joie · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 10 letters
- VOW-5 5 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "R" 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 | rabat-joie |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \ʁa.ba.ʒwa\ |
| Letters | 10 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « rabat-joie » en français
Rare enough to double-check
rabat-joie is uncommon French outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun, transcribed \ʁa.ba.ʒwa\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
rabat-joie has no tracked misspelling variants, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, since its spelling is unusual enough that it doesn't cluster with a lookalike.
Our source data has no etymology on file 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 rabat-joie, spelled R-A-B-A-T---J-O-I-E.
Definition
- 1Personne triste ou ennemie de la joie des autres.
- 2Chose triste.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how rabat-joie appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Ils en auraient vu de toutes les couleurs, tous ces rabat-joie à la mentalité étriquée ! Et toi, tu restes sans bouger, comme une jeune fille doit être ici pour pas faire parler d'elle.
Simon a passé une heure sur ce toboggan, hier soir, en présence de son père. Il n'est pas tombé une seule fois. Alors cesse de jouer les rabat-joie et écoute ce que j'ai à te dire.
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). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.