sésame
French, noun/se.zam/
sésame is spelled S-É-S-A-M-E (6 letters) and appears 1.9 times per million words in written French, the 21,568th most frequent French word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). Sésame is a French masculine noun meaning “sesame (plant, seed)” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) defines it as “Plante à fleurs blanches et ponctuées de pourpre, dont les graines, un peu plus grosses que celles du millet…”.
What does sésame mean in English?
noun
- 1
masculinesesame (plant, seed)
- 2
masculinehint
- 3
masculinesomething that renders something else possible as if by magic: open sesame, magic word, (metaphorical) skeleton key
Source: English Wiktionary, French section, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0).
How French dictionaries define it
noun: 1. Plante à fleurs blanches et ponctuées de pourpre, dont les graines, un peu plus grosses que celles du millet, sont alimentaires et fournissent de l’huile. 2. Graine de cette plante.
noun: 1. Recommandation, indication, pour franchir une étape cruciale, pour traverser une épreuve, ou triompher des obstacles, des difficultés.
The definition in the French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire), in French.
Source: French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire), dump of September 1, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org.
Forms of sésame
- sésames plural
Source: English Wiktionary and French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026).
How do you pronounce sésame?
- /se.zam/
- \se.zam\
- [se.zam]
Sources: English Wiktionary, French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026); recordings from Wikimedia Commons.
English words that translate to sésame
Source: the translation tables of the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026.
How common is sésame in French?
sésame appears 1.9 times per million words in written French.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).