shrapnel
\ʃʁap.nɛl\
The verdict
“shrapnel” is uncommon French (frequency #95,330 among 6,032 “S” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #95,330
- frequency rank, French
- 6,032
- “S” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Obus d’artillerie qui explose au-dessus de sa cible en libérant de nombreux fragments meurtriers.
Corpus desk
Index FR-shrapnel · shrapnel · French
shrapnel · rank #95,330 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #95,330
- LEN-LONG 8 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 6,032
- PHOTO-FINISH showing
Nearest frequency peer: showing (-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 « shrapnel »
Bande clairsemée: les barres inversent le rang pour que le rare se lise plus court
- shakespeari…
shakespearienne
4,674 corpus weight
- showing
showing
4,672 corpus weight
- shrapnel
shrapnel
4,671 corpus weight
- siennois
siennois
4,670 corpus weight
- siffleur
siffleur
4,669 corpus weight
- Sikasso
Sikasso
4,668 corpus weight
What this shows Vue de longue queue: où « shrapnel » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | shrapnel |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \ʃʁap.nɛl\ |
| Letters | 8 |
| Frequency rank | #95,330 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « shrapnel » en français
Rare enough to double-check
shrapnel is uncommon French at frequency #95,330 among 6,032 “S” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed \ʃʁap.nɛl\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
No generated misspelling entries exist for shrapnel in our index, typically a sign the spelling maps closely to how the word sounds. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.
No documented word history exists for this headword, so any spelling logic here comes from how the word's sounds map to letters, not a documented origin story. The correct French form is shrapnel, spelled S-H-R-A-P-N-E-L.
Definition
- 1Obus d’artillerie qui explose au-dessus de sa cible en libérant de nombreux fragments meurtriers.
- 2Fragment de bombe qui explose.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how shrapnel appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Le capitaine Ouzeley vient de faire à Woolwich, l’essai d’une nouvelle machine infernale qui a été déclarée par les officiers-généraux et les ingénieurs présens aux expériences, d'un effet plus prompt et plus infaillible que les bombes de Shrapnell et les fusées de Congrève. il est étonnant que le gouvernement qui par la supériorité de sa marine, paraît l…
En revanche, l'effet du tir à shrapnels contre des buts abrités fut relativement médiocre, et il est à craindre que le tir à shrapnels contre des buts dominants et à couvert ne produise des résultats encore plus défavorables, quand l'artillerie ne sera pas en état de régler son tir.
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 "shrapnel", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked French headwords with 8 letters (nearest by frequency rank).