séminal
\se.mi.nal\
The verdict
“séminal” is uncommon French (frequency #86,225 among 6,032 “S” headwords), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #86,225
- frequency rank, French
- 6,032
- “S” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Relatif à la semence.
Corpus desk
Index FR-seminal · séminal · French
séminal · rank #86,225 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #86,225
- LEN-LONG 7 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 6,032
- PHOTO-FINISH sélectivement
Nearest frequency peer: sélectivement (-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 « séminal »
Bande clairsemée: les barres inversent le rang pour que le rare se lise plus court
- Syros
Syros
13,778 corpus weight
- sélectiveme…
sélectivement
13,777 corpus weight
- séminal
séminal
13,776 corpus weight
- séniles
séniles
13,775 corpus weight
- süddeutsche
süddeutsche
13,773 corpus weight
- tacites
tacites
13,772 corpus weight
What this shows Vue de longue queue: où « séminal » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | séminal |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | \se.mi.nal\ |
| Letters | 7 |
| Frequency rank | #86,225 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « séminal » en français
Rare enough to double-check
séminal is uncommon French at frequency #86,225 among 6,032 “S” headwords, classed as anadjective, transcribed \se.mi.nal\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
Zero misspellings are on record for séminal in our index, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. We don't track a confusable pairing for this entry, suggesting its spelling stands apart enough that readers rarely confuse it with something else.
This entry carries no recorded etymology, leaving phoneme-to-grapheme mapping as the best guide to its spelling rather than a borrowing history. The correct French form is séminal, spelled S-É-M-I-N-A-L.
Definition
- 1Relatif à la semence.
- 2Qualifie une œuvre intellectuelle ou artistique qui a donné naissance à une descendance, à des héritiers pouvant se revendiquer d’elle.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how séminal appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Le taureau doit être choisi, comme le cheval étalon, parmi les plus beaux de son espèce. […]. On lui fait manger alors de l’avoine, de l’orge & de la vesce, pour lui donner de l’ardeur & lui procurer une plus grande abondance de liqueur séminale.
Il est cependant clair que, dans le domaine des neurosciences, sur lequel vous m’interrogez aujourd’hui, l’œuvre de Jean-Pierre Changeux revêt une portée séminale ; elle a suscité des vocations dans toute une génération, dont celles, pour n’en citer que quelques-uns, de Laurent Cohen, Stanislas Dehaene, Lionel Naccache.
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 "séminal", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked French headwords with 7 letters (nearest by frequency rank).