retardant
\ʁə.taʁ.dɑ̃\
The verdict
“retardant” is uncommon French (frequency #52,314 among 5,742 “R” headwords), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #52,314
- frequency rank, French
- 5,742
- “R” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Se dit des phénomènes qui se reproduisent à des intervalles progressivement plus longs.
Corpus desk
Index FR-retardant · retardant · French
retardant · rank #52,314 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #52,314
- LEN-LONG 9 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 5,742
- PHOTO-FINISH remercierai
Nearest frequency peer: remercierai (-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 « retardant »
Bande clairsemée: les barres inversent le rang pour que le rare se lise plus court
- relâchent
relâchent
47,690 corpus weight
- remballer
remballer
47,689 corpus weight
- remercierai
remercierai
47,688 corpus weight
- retardant
retardant
47,687 corpus weight
- retournèrent
retournèrent
47,686 corpus weight
- riais
riais
47,685 corpus weight
What this shows Vue de longue queue: où « retardant » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | retardant |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | \ʁə.taʁ.dɑ̃\ |
| Letters | 9 |
| Frequency rank | #52,314 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « retardant » en français
Rare enough to double-check
retardant is uncommon French at frequency #52,314 among 5,742 “R” headwords, classed as anadjective, transcribed \ʁə.taʁ.dɑ̃\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 3 senses are on record.
retardant has no tracked misspelling variants, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable French rules. This headword has no recorded confusable partner, suggesting its spelling stands apart enough that readers rarely confuse it with something else.
This entry carries no recorded etymology, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. The correct French form is retardant, spelled R-E-T-A-R-D-A-N-T.
Definition
- 1Se dit des phénomènes qui se reproduisent à des intervalles progressivement plus longs.
- 2Règles retardantes : Qui reparaissent après l’époque ordinaire.
- 3Fièvres retardantes : Dont les accès s’éloignent.
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how retardant appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Le développement précoce des accès est en général plus fréquent que leur développement tardif. Dans les fièvres qui ont fait partie de mon cercle d’observations, la plupart des tierces étaient anticipantes. Il se peut aussi que leur nature de fièvre anticipante ou retardante soit seulement apparente, parce qu’on n’est pas à même de préciser exactement le…
Antonyms
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 "retardant", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked French headwords with 9 letters (nearest by frequency rank).