ritournelle
\ʁi.tuʁ.nɛl\
The verdict
“ritournelle” is uncommon French (frequency #55,568 among 5,742 “R” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #55,568
- frequency rank, French
- 5,742
- “R” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Courte phrase musicale dont on fait précéder chaque couplet d’une chanson.
Corpus desk
Index FR-ritournelle · ritournelle · French
ritournelle · rank #55,568 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #55,568
- LEN-MEGA 11 letters
- VOW-5 5 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 5,742
- PHOTO-FINISH Rivarol
Nearest frequency peer: Rivarol (+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 « ritournelle »
Bande clairsemée: les barres inversent le rang pour que le rare se lise plus court
- revends
revends
44,436 corpus weight
- reversée
reversée
44,435 corpus weight
- ritournelle
ritournelle
44,433 corpus weight
- Rivarol
Rivarol
44,432 corpus weight
- rongent
rongent
44,431 corpus weight
- Roussy
Roussy
44,430 corpus weight
What this shows Vue de longue queue: où « ritournelle » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | ritournelle |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \ʁi.tuʁ.nɛl\ |
| Letters | 11 |
| Frequency rank | #55,568 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « ritournelle » en français
Rare enough to double-check
ritournelle is uncommon French at frequency #55,568 among 5,742 “R” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed \ʁi.tuʁ.nɛl\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 3 senses are on record.
No misspelling variants are generated for ritournelle in our index, a straightforward case of a spelling with little room for common typos. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, since no other headword is close enough in sound or shape to pair with it.
No borrowing history is documented for this entry, so its spelling is best explained by sound-to-letter mapping rather than etymology. The correct French form is ritournelle, spelled R-I-T-O-U-R-N-E-L-L-E.
Definition
- 1Courte phrase musicale dont on fait précéder chaque couplet d’une chanson.
- 2Idée à laquelle quelqu’un revient sans cesse, propos qu’il répète à satiété, réponse qu’il fait toujours la même.
- 3Situation qui se répète sans cesse.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how ritournelle appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
En ce moment, l’orchestre, adoucissant le chant de ses cuivres dans une langueur molle et balancée, commençait la ritournelle d’une valse.
Dans son allégresse, elle accompagne de ses chants et de ses danses, en battant rythmiquement des mains, les ritournelles d'un gramophone […].
Synonyms
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 "ritournelle", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked French headwords with 11 letters (nearest by frequency rank).