silly
\ˈsɪl.i\
The verdict
“silly” is uncommon French (frequency #63,355 among 6,032 “S” headwords), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #63,355
- frequency rank, French
- 6,032
- “S” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Bête, stupide, idiot, sot.
Corpus desk
Index FR-silly · silly · French
silly · rank #63,355 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #63,355
- LEN-MID 5 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 6,032
- PHOTO-FINISH sifflant
Nearest frequency peer: sifflant (-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 « silly »
Bande clairsemée: les barres inversent le rang pour que le rare se lise plus court
- serrais
serrais
36,651 corpus weight
- seventies
seventies
36,650 corpus weight
- shout
shout
36,648 corpus weight
- sifflant
sifflant
36,647 corpus weight
- silly
silly
36,646 corpus weight
- SMC
SMC
36,643 corpus weight
What this shows Vue de longue queue: où « silly » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | silly |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | \ˈsɪl.i\ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #63,355 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « silly » en français
Rare enough to double-check
silly is uncommon French at frequency #63,355 among 6,032 “S” headwords, classed as anadjective, transcribed \ˈsɪl.i\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
silly doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. No confusable counterpart is on file for this word, suggesting its spelling stands apart enough that readers rarely confuse it with something else.
Wiktionary doesn't record an etymology for this headword, so its spelling is easiest to reason about phoneme by phoneme, absent a documented history. The correct French form is silly, spelled S-I-L-L-Y.
Definition
- 1Bête, stupide, idiot, sot.
- 2Ridicule, absurde.
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how silly appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
I was a silly child who believed in the revolution.
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 "silly"?
What does "silly" mean?
How do you pronounce "silly"?
What language does "silly" come from?
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Similar French words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "silly", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked French headwords with 5 letters (nearest by frequency rank).