sommeil
\sɔ.mɛj\
The verdict
“sommeil” is a regularly-used French word, ranked #2,799 in French word frequency and used as a noun.
- #2,799
- frequency rank, French
- 7
- letters
- 8
- tracked misspellings
- 6
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - État inconscient, souvent accompagné de rêves, dans lequel doivent obligatoirement se plonger les hommes et les animaux périodiquement pour des raisons psychologiques et physiologiques.
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 | sommeil |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \sɔ.mɛj\ |
| Letters | 7 |
| Frequency rank | #2,799 |
| Misspellings tracked | 8 |
| Confusable pairs | 6 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “sommeil” sits in French frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The French entry for sommeil is 7 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \sɔ.mɛj\. Corpus data places it at rank #2,799 in overall French word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. Wiktionary records 8 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 8 likely wrong-spelling variants for sommeil, with forms such as "osmmeil", "smomeil", and "someil". 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 6 confusable-pair relationships, "sommes", "sommet", "Sommer", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
This entry carries no recorded etymology, 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 sommeil, spelled S-O-M-M-E-I-L.
Definition
- 1État inconscient, souvent accompagné de rêves, dans lequel doivent obligatoirement se plonger les hommes et les animaux périodiquement pour des raisons psychologiques et physiologiques.
- 2Grande envie, un grand besoin de dormir.
- 3Mort.
- 4État d’inactivité, d’inertie où se trouvent certaines choses.
- 5État dans lequel les plantes ont leurs feuilles et leurs fleurs pliées ou fermées, ordinairement durant la nuit, et qui est dû à l’absence de la chaleur et de la lumière.
- 6Sorte d’engourdissement qui saisit certains animaux pendant l’hiver ; ou qui, dans les pays chauds, saisit d’autres animaux durant la saison sèche.
- 7Phase d’inactivité d’un appareil, d’une machine.
- 8Période durant laquelle on dort.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: osmmeil,smomeil,someil,somemil,sommeill,sommeli,sommiel,ssommeil
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of sommeil - 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 "sommeil"?
What does "sommeil" mean?
What words are commonly confused with "sommeil"?
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Using “sommeil”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct French spelling is S-O-M-M-E-I-L - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as \sɔ.mɛj\ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “sommes” - see the side-by-side comparison. sommeil vs sommes
- Browse more French words and confusable pairs in the same reference. French words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.