raphia
\ʁa.fja\
The verdict
“raphia” is uncommon French (frequency #71,849 among 5,742 “R” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #71,849
- frequency rank, French
- 5,742
- “R” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Genre de palmiers, dont certaines espèces produisent des fibres qui servent à faire des liens, des tresses, des cordages, des tissus. → voir Raphia
Corpus desk
Index FR-raphia · raphia · French
raphia · rank #71,849 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #71,849
- LEN-LONG 6 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 5,742
- PHOTO-FINISH rapidos
Nearest frequency peer: rapidos (+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 « raphia »
Bande clairsemée: les barres inversent le rang pour que le rare se lise plus court
- racisés
racisés
28,156 corpus weight
- raconterais
raconterais
28,155 corpus weight
- raphia
raphia
28,152 corpus weight
- rapidos
rapidos
28,151 corpus weight
- Rasmus
Rasmus
28,150 corpus weight
- Rath
Rath
28,149 corpus weight
What this shows Vue de longue queue: où « raphia » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | raphia |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \ʁa.fja\ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #71,849 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « raphia » en français
Rare enough to double-check
raphia is uncommon French at frequency #71,849 among 5,742 “R” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed \ʁa.fja\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
We couldn't generate a plausible misspelling set for raphia, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable French rules. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, which usually means its spelling is distinct enough that readers don't reach for a similar-looking word instead.
This entry carries no recorded etymology, so its spelling is best explained by sound-to-letter mapping rather than etymology. The correct French form is raphia, spelled R-A-P-H-I-A.
Definition
- 1Genre de palmiers, dont certaines espèces produisent des fibres qui servent à faire des liens, des tresses, des cordages, des tissus. → voir Raphia
- 2Fibre ou lien tiré du palmier Raphia farinifera (Gaertn.) Hyl. originaire de Madagascar.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how raphia appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Il plante des greffes, enrobées dans une feuille de plomb et ligaturées au raphia sulfaté, en pleine terre, […].
— Vous ne nous devez rien, dit simplement Angélique, en secouant ses beaux cheveux couleur de raphia.
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
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Similar French words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "raphia", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked French headwords with 6 letters (nearest by frequency rank).