smiley

/\smaj.lɛ\/ noun

Letters

6 characters

Frequency Rank

#24,036

in French word usage

Misspellings

9

tracked variants

Confusables

5

similar word pairs

smiley is aFrenchnoun. It means: Représentation graphique d’un visage humain souriant, le plus souvent coloré en jaune. Pronounced \smaj.lɛ\. Often confused with Stiles and smileys.

Key facts for smiley
PropertyValue
Headwordsmiley
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\smaj.lɛ\
Letters6
Frequency rank#24,036
Misspellings tracked9
Confusable pairs5
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Frequency rank visualization

Position of smiley in French word frequency (lower rank = more common)

Source: Wordfreq corpus

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

The French entry for smiley is 6 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \smaj.lɛ\. Corpus data places it at rank #24,036 in overall French word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it.The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "Représentation graphique d’un visage humain souriant, le plus souvent coloré en jaune.".

Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 9 documented wrong-spelling variants for smiley, with forms such as "msiley", "simley", and "smiely". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 5 confusable-pair relationships, "Stiles", "smileys", "silex", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.

No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct French form is smiley, spelled S-M-I-L-E-Y, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.

Definition

  1. 1
    Représentation graphique d’un visage humain souriant, le plus souvent coloré en jaune.

Synonyms

This word in other languages

Common misspellings

Also misspelled as: msiley,simley,smiely,smileyy,smilley,smilye,smliey,smmiley,ssmiley

Misspelling Pattern Breakdown

Relative frequency of common misspelling types for smiley

Misspelling Variants of "smiley"

msiley6simley6smiely6smileyy7smilley7smilye6smliey6smmiley7
Misspelling Variants of "smiley"

Frequency rank: #24,036 in French

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "smiley"?
"smiley" is spelled S-M-I-L-E-Y. The IPA pronunciation is \smaj.lɛ\.
What does "smiley" mean?
As a noun, "smiley" means: Représentation graphique d’un visage humain souriant, le plus souvent coloré en jaune.
What words are commonly confused with "smiley"?
"smiley" is commonly confused with "Stiles", "smileys", "silex". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "smiley"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "smiley" is \smaj.lɛ\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "smiley" come from?
"smiley" is a French word. PlainSpell covers definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German.
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.

Nearby French words

Other entries that begin with the letter S in our French index:

Explore PlainSpell

Data Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Frequency data from Wordfreq. Misspellings derived from Hunspell dictionaries.