sommeil

/\sɔ.mɛj\/ noun

Letters

7 characters

Frequency Rank

#2,799

in French word usage

Misspellings

8

tracked variants

Confusables

6

similar word pairs

sommeil is aFrenchnoun. It means: État inconscient, souvent accompagné de rêves, dans lequel doivent obligatoirement se plonger les hommes et les animaux périodiquement pour des raisons psychologiques et physiologiques. Pronounced \sɔ.mɛj\. It ranks #2,799 in French word frequency. Often confused with sommes and sommet.

Key facts for sommeil
PropertyValue
Headwordsommeil
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\sɔ.mɛj\
Letters7
Frequency rank#2,799
Misspellings tracked8
Confusable pairs6
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Frequency rank visualization

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

Source: Wordfreq corpus

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

The French entry for sommeil is 7 letters long, classified as anoun, 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 Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 8 documented wrong-spelling variants for sommeil, with forms such as "osmmeil", "smomeil", and "someil". 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 6 confusable-pair relationships, "sommes", "sommet", "Sommer", 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 sommeil, spelled S-O-M-M-E-I-L, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.

Definition

  1. 1
    État inconscient, souvent accompagné de rêves, dans lequel doivent obligatoirement se plonger les hommes et les animaux périodiquement pour des raisons psychologiques et physiologiques.
  2. 2
    Grande envie, un grand besoin de dormir.
  3. 3
    Mort.
  4. 4
    État d’inactivité, d’inertie où se trouvent certaines choses.
  5. 5
    État 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.
  6. 6
    Sorte d’engourdissement qui saisit certains animaux pendant l’hiver ; ou qui, dans les pays chauds, saisit d’autres animaux durant la saison sèche.
  7. 7
    Phase d’inactivité d’un appareil, d’une machine.
  8. 8
    Période durant laquelle on dort.

Synonyms

Antonyms

This word in other languages

Common misspellings

Also misspelled as: osmmeil,smomeil,someil,somemil,sommeill,sommeli,sommiel,ssommeil

Misspelling Pattern Breakdown

Relative frequency of common misspelling types for sommeil

Misspelling Variants of "sommeil"

osmmeil7smomeil7someil6somemil7sommeill8sommeli7sommiel7ssommeil8
Misspelling Variants of "sommeil"

Frequency rank: #2,799 in French

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "sommeil"?
"sommeil" is spelled S-O-M-M-E-I-L. The IPA pronunciation is \sɔ.mɛj\.
What does "sommeil" mean?
As a noun, "sommeil" means: État inconscient, souvent accompagné de rêves, dans lequel doivent obligatoirement se plonger les hommes et les animaux périodiquement pour des raisons psychologiques et physiologiques.
What words are commonly confused with "sommeil"?
"sommeil" is commonly confused with "sommes", "sommet", "Sommer". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "sommeil"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "sommeil" is \sɔ.mɛj\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "sommeil" come from?
"sommeil" 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.