sans-le-sou
\sɑ̃ l(ə)su\
The verdict
“sans-le-sou” is uncommon French (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency French
- 11
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Personne désargentée, très pauvre, mendiant.
Corpus desk
Index FR-sans-le-sou · sans-le-sou · French
sans-le-sou · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 11 letters
- VOW-4 4 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "S" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
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.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | sans-le-sou |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \sɑ̃ l(ə)su\ |
| Letters | 11 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « sans-le-sou » en français
Rare enough to double-check
sans-le-sou is uncommon French outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun, transcribed \sɑ̃ l(ə)su\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Personne désargentée, très pauvre, mendiant.".
Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for sans-le-sou, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. This entry stands alone in our confusable dataset, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.
No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, so its spelling pattern is best understood through pronunciation rather than a traceable origin. The correct French form is sans-le-sou, spelled S-A-N-S---L-E---S-O-U.
Definition
- 1Personne désargentée, très pauvre, mendiant.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how sans-le-sou appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
C’est un, une sans-le-sou.
Le bouquin va de l’avant, le môme a vraiment du sang, et l’on trinque à sa santé dans les cafés du boulevard et les mansardes du Quartier latin. Les sans-le-sou ont reconnu un des leurs, les bohèmes ont vu le gouffre, j’ai sauvé de la fainéantise ou du bagne un tas de garçons qui y couraient, par le sentier que Murger a bordé de lilas !
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.