sombre
\sɔ̃bʁ\
The verdict
“sombre” has 9 generated spelling variants in the French index at frequency #3,040. The variants make it a useful spelling check.
- #3,040
- frequency rank, French
- 6,032
- “S” headwords
- 9
- tracked misspellings
- 11
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Qui est peu éclairé ; qui reçoit peu de lumière ; qui est obscur.
Corpus desk
Index FR-sombre · sombre · French
sombre · rank #3,040 · 9 variants · 11 confusables
- FREQ-COMMON #3,040
- LEN-LONG 6 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-MID 11 pairs
- VAR-MID 9 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 6,032
- PHOTO-FINISH solidarité
Nearest frequency peer: solidarité (-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 « sombre »
Même bande de rareté: utile si une faute tombe sur un lemme voisin
- secrets
secrets
96,964 corpus weight
- Ski
Ski
96,963 corpus weight
- solidarité
solidarité
96,962 corpus weight
- sombre
sombre
96,961 corpus weight
- suivants
suivants
96,960 corpus weight
- suivent
suivent
96,959 corpus weight
What this shows « sombre » siège parmi ces pairs FrequencyWords; la profondeur des fautes est suivie à part dans le graphique d'édition.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | sombre |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | \sɔ̃bʁ\ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #3,040 |
| Misspellings tracked | 9 |
| Confusable pairs | 11 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Fréquence de l'aimant d'erreurs « sombre »
A misspelling magnet
The generator records 9 spelling variants around sombre (IPA \sɔ̃bʁ\), anadjective. Corpus frequency is #3,040 among 6,032 “S” headwords. Wiktionary lists 4 senses, so context still picks the gloss.
Our generated misspelling index lists 9 likely wrong-spelling variants for sombre, with forms such as "osmbre", "smobre", and "sobmre". Each of these forms differs from the correct spelling by one small edit: a doubled letter, a dropped silent letter, or a substituted vowel. It also participates in 11 confusable-pair relationships, "some", "somme", "sonore", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
This headword's origin isn't recorded in our source data, so any spelling logic here comes from how the word's sounds map to letters, not a documented origin story. The correct French form is sombre, spelled S-O-M-B-R-E.
Definition
- 1Qui est peu éclairé ; qui reçoit peu de lumière ; qui est obscur.
- 2Qui est moins éclatant, qui est plus foncé que les autres, en parlant d’une teinte, d’une couleur.
- 3Qui est mélancolique, morne, taciturne ou chagrin.
- 4Qui est inquiétant ou menaçant.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how sombre appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Aucune lumière n’était demeurée ni dans les chambres basses ni dans les corridors ; de temps en temps seulement un éclair livide illuminait les appartements sombres d’un reflet bleuâtre qui disparaissait aussitôt.
[…] puis il […] se coiffa d’un toquet de velours noir sans plume ni pierreries, s’enveloppa d’un manteau de couleur sombre […]
Antonyms
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as:
- osmbre
- smobre
- sobmre
- sombbre
- somber
- sombrre
- sommbre
- somrbe
- ssombre
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of sombre - counted as single-character edits (an insertion, a deletion, or a substituted letter). The larger the bar, the easier the typo is to spot; one-edit slips are the ones that sneak past readers.
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 "sombre"?
What does "sombre" mean?
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Similar French words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "sombre", 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).