seiche

\sɛʃ\

/\sɛʃ\/ noun

The verdict

“seiche” is uncommon French (frequency #54,899 among 6,032 “S” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

#54,899
frequency rank, French
6,032
“S” headwords

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Mollusque marin, qui jette un liquide noir pour masquer sa fuite et dont l’ossature est constituée d’un seul os de substance friable.

Corpus desk

Index FR-seiche · seiche · French

seiche · rank #54,899 · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-RARE #54,899
  • LEN-LONG 6 letters
  • VOW-3 3 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-DENSE 6,032
  • PHOTO-FINISH sectoriels

Nearest frequency peer: sectoriels (-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 « seiche »

Bande clairsemée: les barres inversent le rang pour que le rare se lise plus court

corpus weight

What this shows Vue de longue queue: où « seiche » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026
Key facts for seiche
PropertyValue
Headwordseiche
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\sɛʃ\
Letters6
Frequency rank#54,899
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Longue queue: rang de « seiche » en français

Cette échelle va du noyau du français courant (gauche) jusqu'à la traîne des formes rares (droite).seichetombe dans cette queue de rareté:

#1#100#1K#10K#100K
← used constantlyrarely used →

L'échelle est logarithmique (chaque tic ≈ 10× plus rare). Voisins rares de la même bande: « sectoriels » (#54,898), « sema » (#54,900), « Scylla » (#54,897). Parmi 6,032 lemmes en « S », « seiche » est au #54,899. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

seiche is uncommon French at frequency #54,899 among 6,032 “S” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed \sɛʃ\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Mollusque marin, qui jette un liquide noir pour masquer sa fuite et dont l’ossature est constituée d’un seul os de substance friable.".

seiche has no tracked misspelling variants, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. Our dataset records no confusable match here, which typically means the spelling is too distinctive to be mistaken for another word.

This headword's origin isn't recorded in our source data, leaving phoneme-to-grapheme mapping as the best guide to its spelling rather than a borrowing history. The correct French form is seiche, spelled S-E-I-C-H-E.

Definition

  1. 1
    Mollusque marin, qui jette un liquide noir pour masquer sa fuite et dont l’ossature est constituée d’un seul os de substance friable.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

These source excerpts show how seiche appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. Os de seiche.
  2. La petite troupe foula un sable composé de débris de coquilles bivalves, d’os de seiche, et mélangé dans une grande proportion de peroxyde et de protoxyde de fer.

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

How do you spell "seiche"?
"seiche" is spelled S-E-I-C-H-E. The IPA pronunciation is \sɛʃ\.
What does "seiche" mean?
As a noun, "seiche" means: Mollusque marin, qui jette un liquide noir pour masquer sa fuite et dont l’ossature est constituée d’un seul os de substance friable.
How do you pronounce "seiche"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "seiche" is \sɛʃ\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "seiche" come from?
"seiche" is a French word. PlainSpell's reference spans five languages -- English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German -- with definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for each.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Similar French words by spelling shape

Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "seiche", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked French headwords with 6 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list