smiley

\smaj.lɛ\

/\smaj.lɛ\/ noun

The verdict

“smiley” has 9 generated spelling variants in the French index at frequency #24,036. The variants make it a useful spelling check.

#24,036
frequency rank, French
6,032
“S” headwords
9
tracked misspellings
5
confusable pairs

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Représentation graphique d’un visage humain souriant, le plus souvent coloré en jaune.

Corpus desk

Index FR-smiley · smiley · French

smiley · rank #24,036 · 9 variants · 5 confusables

  • FREQ-MID #24,036
  • LEN-LONG 6 letters
  • VOW-3 3 vowels
  • CONFUS-MID 5 pairs
  • VAR-MID 9 variants
  • BOOK-DENSE 6,032
  • PHOTO-FINISH simpliste

Nearest frequency peer: simpliste (-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.

Pairs de rang près de l'aimant d'erreurs « smiley »

Même bande de rareté: utile si une faute tombe sur un lemme voisin

corpus weight

What this shows « smiley » siège parmi ces pairs FrequencyWords; la profondeur des fautes est suivie à part dans le graphique d'édition.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026

Visual similarity to commonly confused words

How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).

smiley vs Stiles
50% similar
smiley vs smileys
86% similar
smiley vs silex
67% similar

Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).

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)

Fréquence de l'aimant d'erreurs « smiley »

La fréquence va de la poignée de mots du quotidien (gauche) à la longue queue presque jamais vue (droite).smileyse place ici:

#1#100#1K#10K#100K
← used constantlyrarely used →

L'axe est logarithmique: chaque tic marque environ dix fois moins de fréquence. Dans la même bande de rareté figurent « simpliste » (#24,035), « sole » (#24,037), « Soral » (#24,038). Parmi 6,032 lemmes en « S », « smiley » est au #24,036. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

A misspelling magnet

The generator records 9 spelling variants around smiley (IPA \smaj.lɛ\), anoun. Corpus frequency is #24,036 among 6,032 “S” headwords. Dominant gloss: "Représentation graphique d’un visage humain souriant, le plus souvent coloré en jaune.".

Our generated misspelling index lists 9 likely wrong-spelling variants for smiley, with forms such as "msiley", "simley", and "smiely". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. 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 documented word history exists for this headword, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. The correct French form is smiley, spelled S-M-I-L-E-Y.

Definition

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

Recorded use

Wiktionary example

These source excerpts show how smiley appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. Manon aime bien discuter avec ses amis le soir sur son ordinateur. Elle connait bien comme eux tous les lol, mdr et autres smileys/émoticônes. Elle utilise Windows Live Messenger et arrive à suivre une dizaine de conversations sans problème.

Synonyms

This word in other languages

Common misspellings

Also misspelled as:

  • msiley
  • simley
  • smiely
  • smileyy
  • smilley
  • smilye
  • smliey
  • smmiley
  • ssmiley

Misspelling Pattern Breakdown

How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of smiley - measured in single-character edits (insert, delete, or substitute a letter). Larger bars are easier to catch; one-edit slips are the sneakiest.

msiley2simley2smiely2smileyy1smilley1smilye2smliey2smmiley1
Edit distance from "smiley"

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 "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.

Similar French words by spelling shape

Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "smiley", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked French headwords with 6 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

Similar misspelling depth

Headwords with a similar count of attested misspellings (9 here; floor ≥5).

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list