schlau
\ʃlaʊ\
The verdict
“schlau” is uncommon French (outside the top frequency list), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency French
- 6
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Rusé, malin.
Corpus desk
Index FR-schlau · schlau · French
schlau · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-LONG 6 letters
- VOW-2 2 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 | schlau |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | \ʃlaʊ\ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « schlau » en français
Rare enough to double-check
schlau is uncommon French outside the top frequency list, classed as anadjective, transcribed \ʃlaʊ\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Rusé, malin.".
No misspelling variants are generated for schlau in our index, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. 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.
Wiktionary doesn't record an etymology for this headword, so its spelling is best explained by sound-to-letter mapping rather than etymology. The correct French form is schlau, spelled S-C-H-L-A-U.
Definition
- 1Rusé, malin.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how schlau appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Max und Moritz waren sicherlich schlau, aber nicht gescheit.
Ganz schön schlau!
Synonyms
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.