serpe
\sɛʁp\
The verdict
“serpe” is uncommon French (frequency #77,032 among 6,032 “S” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #77,032
- frequency rank, French
- 6,032
- “S” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Lame de fer, large et tranchante, recourbée en forme de croissant, emmanchée de bois et dont on se sert pour émonder les arbres, pour les tailler, etc.
Corpus desk
Index FR-serpe · serpe · French
serpe · rank #77,032 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #77,032
- LEN-MID 5 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 6,032
- PHOTO-FINISH sempre
Nearest frequency peer: sempre (-2 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 « serpe »
Bande clairsemée: les barres inversent le rang pour que le rare se lise plus court
- semenciers
semenciers
22,973 corpus weight
- sempiternel…
sempiternelle
22,972 corpus weight
- sempre
sempre
22,971 corpus weight
- serpe
serpe
22,969 corpus weight
- sevrés
sevrés
22,967 corpus weight
- Sganarelle
Sganarelle
22,966 corpus weight
What this shows Vue de longue queue: où « serpe » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | serpe |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \sɛʁp\ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #77,032 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « serpe » en français
Rare enough to double-check
serpe is uncommon French at frequency #77,032 among 6,032 “S” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed \sɛʁp\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Lame de fer, large et tranchante, recourbée en forme de croissant, emmanchée de bois et dont on se sert pour émonder les arbres, pour les tailler, etc.".
Zero misspellings are on record for serpe in our index, suggesting the orthography follows predictable French patterns. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, which typically means the spelling is too distinctive to be mistaken for another word.
Wiktionary doesn't record an etymology for this headword, leaving phoneme-to-grapheme mapping as the best guide to its spelling rather than a borrowing history. The correct French form is serpe, spelled S-E-R-P-E.
Definition
- 1Lame de fer, large et tranchante, recourbée en forme de croissant, emmanchée de bois et dont on se sert pour émonder les arbres, pour les tailler, etc.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how serpe appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
II avait un grand diable de nez tranchant et recourbé comme une serpe.
[…] leurs maisons coquettement peintes, leurs vertes prairies, leurs arbres que la serpe n’a jamais ébranchés.
Synonyms
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
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Similar French words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "serpe", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked French headwords with 5 letters (nearest by frequency rank).