rainure

\ʁe.nyʁ\

/\ʁe.nyʁ\/ noun

The verdict

“rainure” is uncommon French (frequency #59,572 among 5,742 “R” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

#59,572
frequency rank, French
5,742
“R” headwords

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Sillon régulier visible sur une surface.

Corpus desk

Index FR-rainure · rainure · French

rainure · rank #59,572 · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-RARE #59,572
  • LEN-LONG 7 letters
  • VOW-4 4 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-DENSE 5,742
  • PHOTO-FINISH rains

Nearest frequency peer: rains (-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 « rainure »

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

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026
Key facts for rainure
PropertyValue
Headwordrainure
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\ʁe.nyʁ\
Letters7
Frequency rank#59,572
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Longue queue: rang de « rainure » en français

De gauche à droite: le peu qui porte la parole quotidienne, puis la longue queue quasi invisible.rainuretombe dans cette queue de rareté:

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

L'échelle est logarithmique (chaque tic ≈ 10× plus rare). Voisins rares de la même bande: « rains » (#59,571), « rajoutés » (#59,573), « raffiner » (#59,570). Parmi 5,742 lemmes en « R », « rainure » est au #59,572. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

rainure is uncommon French at frequency #59,572 among 5,742 “R” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed \ʁe.nyʁ\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.

Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for rainure, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. 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, so its spelling is best explained by sound-to-letter mapping rather than etymology. The correct French form is rainure, spelled R-A-I-N-U-R-E.

Definition

  1. 1
    Sillon régulier visible sur une surface.
  2. 2
    Petite entaille faite en long sur l’épaisseur d’une pièce mécanique, pour y assembler une autre pièce, ou pour servir à une coulisse.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

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

  1. Deux tours rondes, coiffées de toits en éteignoir, flanquaient les angles d’un bâtiment, sur la façade duquel deux rainures profondément entaillées trahissaient l’existence primitive d’un pont-levis réduit à l’état de sinécure par le nivelage du fossé, et donnaient au manoir un aspect assez féodal, avec leurs échauguettes en poivrière et leurs girouettes…
  2. La lame du kinjal porte sur chaque face une rainure pour permettre l’écoulement du sang de la victime.

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 "rainure"?
"rainure" is spelled R-A-I-N-U-R-E. The IPA pronunciation is \ʁe.nyʁ\.
What does "rainure" mean?
As a noun, "rainure" means: Sillon régulier visible sur une surface.
How do you pronounce "rainure"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "rainure" is \ʁe.nyʁ\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "rainure" come from?
"rainure" 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 "rainure", 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