s’en laver les mains
\s‿ɑ̃ la.ve le mɛ̃\
The verdict
“s’en laver les mains” is outside the top-ranked French vocabulary, used as a verb - the kind of word writers most often double-check.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency French
- 20
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Décliner toute responsabilité, refuser toute intervention.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | s’en laver les mains |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | \s‿ɑ̃ la.ve le mɛ̃\ |
| Letters | 20 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “s’en laver les mains” sits in French frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The French entry for s’en laver les mains is 20 letters long, classified as a verb, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \s‿ɑ̃ la.ve le mɛ̃\. It sits outside the most-frequent rank tiers, which is often why uncommon words generate more spelling variants per reader. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "Décliner toute responsabilité, refuser toute intervention.".
s’en laver les mains doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, a sign its spelling follows regular French conventions. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.
No documented word history exists for this headword, so its spelling is best explained by sound-to-letter mapping rather than etymology. The correct French form is s’en laver les mains, spelled S-’-E-N- -L-A-V-E-R- -L-E-S- -M-A-I-N-S.
Definition
- 1Décliner toute responsabilité, refuser toute intervention.
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). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you spell "s’en laver les mains"?
What does "s’en laver les mains" mean?
How do you pronounce "s’en laver les mains"?
What language does "s’en laver les mains" come from?
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Using “s’en laver les mains”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct French spelling is S-’-E-N- -L-A-V-E-R- -L-E-S- -M-A-I-N-S - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as \s‿ɑ̃ la.ve le mɛ̃\ (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.