sinistre
French, noun
sinistre is spelled S-I-N-I-S-T-R-E (8 letters) and appears 6.2 times per million words in written French, the 9,615th most frequent French word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). Sinistre is a French masculine noun meaning “accident, incident” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). With an accent, sinistré is a different word: “victim of a natural disaster”. The French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) defines it as “Dommage comme un incendie, une inondation, un tremblement de terre, etc”.
What does sinistre mean in English?
adjective
- 1
scary
- 2
sinister, ominous
noun
- 1
masculineaccident, incident
- 2
masculinedisaster
adjective
- 1
destroyed by a natural disaster
noun
- 1
masculinevictim of a natural disaster
Source: English Wiktionary, French section, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0).
How French dictionaries define it
adjective: 1. Qui a subi un sinistre.
noun: 1. Personne qui a subi un sinistre (tremblement de terre, inondation, incendie...).
adjective: 1. Qui annonce ou qui présage des malheurs. 2. Qui est sombre, funeste ou terrifiant. 3. Qualifie la physionomie, l’air du visage qui aurait quelque chose de sombre et de méchant. 4. Qui est méchant, funeste, pernicieux.
noun: 1. Dommage comme un incendie, une inondation, un tremblement de terre, etc. 2. Pertes et dommages qui arrivent aux objets assurés.
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 sinistre
- sinistres plural
- sinistrée feminine
- sinistrés masculine plural
- sinistrées feminine plural
Source: English Wiktionary and French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026).
English words that translate to sinistre
Source: the translation tables of the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026.
How common is sinistre in French?
sinistre appears 6.2 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).