sheva

noun

The verdict

“sheva” is uncommon French (frequency #77,038 among 6,032 “S” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

#77,038
frequency rank, French
6,032
“S” headwords

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - « Les points dont sont munies les lettres hébraïques, qui n’ont pas de voyelles. »

Corpus desk

Index FR-sheva · sheva · French

sheva · rank #77,038 · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-RARE #77,038
  • LEN-MID 5 letters
  • VOW-2 2 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-DENSE 6,032
  • PHOTO-FINISH Sigean

Nearest frequency peer: Sigean (+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 « sheva »

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 « sheva » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026
Key facts for sheva
PropertyValue
Headwordsheva
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
Letters5
Frequency rank#77,038
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Longue queue: rang de « sheva » en français

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

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

L'axe est logarithmique: chaque tic marque environ dix fois moins de fréquence. Voisins rares de la même bande: « Sigean » (#77,039), « shared » (#77,036), « simplifient » (#77,040). Parmi 6,032 lemmes en « S », « sheva » est au #77,038. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

sheva is uncommon French at frequency #77,038 among 6,032 “S” headwords, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "« Les points dont sont munies les lettres hébraïques, qui n’ont pas de voyelles. »".

Zero misspellings are on record for sheva in our index, a sign its spelling follows regular French conventions. We don't track a confusable pairing for this entry, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.

This headword's origin isn't recorded in our source data, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. The correct French form is sheva, spelled S-H-E-V-A.

Definition

  1. 1
    « Les points dont sont munies les lettres hébraïques, qui n’ont pas de voyelles. »

Recorded use

Wiktionary example

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

  1. Berthelot m’apprit ce qu’on n’enseignait pas au séminaire ; de mon côté, je me mis en devoir de lui apprendre la théologie et l’hébreu. Berthelot acheta une bible hébraïque, qui est encore, je crois, non coupée dans sa bibliothèque. Je dois dire qu’il n’alla pas beaucoup au delà des shevas.

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 "sheva"?
"sheva" is spelled S-H-E-V-A.
What does "sheva" mean?
As a noun, "sheva" means: « Les points dont sont munies les lettres hébraïques, qui n’ont pas de voyelles. »
What language does "sheva" come from?
"sheva" is a French word. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for this and other words across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German on PlainSpell.
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 "sheva", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked French headwords with 5 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list