sine qua non
\si.ne kwa nɔn\
The verdict
“sine qua non” is uncommon French (outside the top frequency list), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency French
- 12
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Qui est indispensable, sans quoi rien ne peut se faire, ne peut avoir lieu.
Corpus desk
Index FR-sine-qua-non · sine qua non · French
sine qua non · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 12 letters
- VOW-5 5 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "S" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
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.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | sine qua non |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | \si.ne kwa nɔn\ |
| Letters | 12 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « sine qua non » en français
Rare enough to double-check
sine qua non is uncommon French outside the top frequency list, classed as anadjective, transcribed \si.ne kwa nɔn\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Qui est indispensable, sans quoi rien ne peut se faire, ne peut avoir lieu.".
Zero misspellings are on record for sine qua non in our index, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, suggesting its spelling stands apart enough that readers rarely confuse it with something else.
No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, so its spelling is easiest to reason about phoneme by phoneme, absent a documented history. The correct French form is sine qua non, spelled S-I-N-E- -Q-U-A- -N-O-N.
Definition
- 1Qui est indispensable, sans quoi rien ne peut se faire, ne peut avoir lieu.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how sine qua non appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Écouter de tels discours d’un air attentif et très poli, ne jamais bâiller quelque long et éloquent qu’en fut le développement, tel était le devoir sine qua non de Lucien, tel était le prix de la grâce extrême que lui avait faite la bonne compagnie de Nancy en l’admettant dans son sein.
– C’est que je ne suis pas d’humeur à imiter celui de nos collègues libre-penseur qui a marié sa fille à l’église parce que c’était la condition sine qua non d’une union avantageuse. Rouge au dehors, blanc au dedans…
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). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.