rectal
\ʁɛk.tal\
The verdict
“rectal” is an uncommon French word, ranked #52,940 in French word frequency and used as an adjective.
- #52,940
- frequency rank, French
- 6
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Relatif au rectum.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | rectal |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | \ʁɛk.tal\ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #52,940 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “rectal” sits in French frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The French entry for rectal is 6 letters long, classified as an adjective, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \ʁɛk.tal\. Corpus data places it at rank #52,940 in overall French word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "Relatif au rectum.".
rectal doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, a sign its spelling follows regular French conventions. No confusable counterpart is on file for this word, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
This entry carries no recorded etymology, leaving phoneme-to-grapheme mapping as the best guide to its spelling rather than a borrowing history. The correct French form is rectal, spelled R-E-C-T-A-L.
Definition
- 1Relatif au rectum.
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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Using “rectal”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct French spelling is R-E-C-T-A-L - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as \ʁɛk.tal\ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Browse more French words and confusable pairs in the same reference. French words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.