soubrette

\su.bʁɛt\

/\su.bʁɛt\/ noun

The verdict

“soubrette” is uncommon French (frequency #56,935 among 6,032 “S” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

#56,935
frequency rank, French
6,032
“S” headwords

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Nom que l’on donne, au théâtre, aux servantes ou suivantes de comédie.

Corpus desk

Index FR-soubrette · soubrette · French

soubrette · rank #56,935 · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-RARE #56,935
  • LEN-LONG 9 letters
  • VOW-4 4 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-DENSE 6,032
  • PHOTO-FINISH sopranos

Nearest frequency peer: sopranos (-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.

Rangs de longue queue près de « soubrette »

Bande clairsemée: les barres inversent le rang pour que le rare se lise plus court

corpus weight

What this shows Vue de longue queue: où « soubrette » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026
Key facts for soubrette
PropertyValue
Headwordsoubrette
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\su.bʁɛt\
Letters9
Frequency rank#56,935
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Longue queue: rang de « soubrette » en français

La fréquence va de la poignée de mots du quotidien (gauche) à la longue queue presque jamais vue (droite).soubrettetombe dans cette queue de rareté:

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

L'échelle est logarithmique (chaque tic ≈ 10× plus rare). Voisins rares de la même bande: « sopranos » (#56,934), « souhaiteriez » (#56,936), « souhaitions » (#56,937). Parmi 6,032 lemmes en « S », « soubrette » est au #56,935. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

soubrette is uncommon French at frequency #56,935 among 6,032 “S” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed \su.bʁɛt\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 3 senses are on record.

soubrette has no tracked misspelling variants, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. No confusable counterpart is on file for this word, since no other headword is close enough in sound or shape to pair with it.

Our source data has no etymology on file for this entry, leaving phoneme-to-grapheme mapping as the best guide to its spelling rather than a borrowing history. The correct French form is soubrette, spelled S-O-U-B-R-E-T-T-E.

Definition

  1. 1
    Nom que l’on donne, au théâtre, aux servantes ou suivantes de comédie.
  2. 2
    ou Servante ou jeune femme de chambre accorte ou avenante et délurée.
  3. 3
    Personne (sans distinction de genre) à la tenue de servante volontairement affriolante dans les milieux BDSM et fétichistes.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

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

  1. Rôle, emploi de soubrette, jouer les soubrettes, une soubrette de Molière.
  2. D’escale en escale, le pont se peuplait : il y montait des mères de famille allemandes, suivies de deux ou trois fillettes et d’une Gretchen naïve, n’ayant pas l’air dame de la femme de chambre anglaise, encore moins l’air soubrette de la femme de chambre française, mais rappelant le type de Marguerite dans les illustrations de Reschz.

Synonyms

This word in other languages

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 "soubrette"?
"soubrette" is spelled S-O-U-B-R-E-T-T-E. The IPA pronunciation is \su.bʁɛt\.
What does "soubrette" mean?
As a noun, "soubrette" means: Nom que l’on donne, au théâtre, aux servantes ou suivantes de comédie.
How do you pronounce "soubrette"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "soubrette" is \su.bʁɛt\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "soubrette" come from?
"soubrette" is a French word. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for this and other words across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German on PlainSpell.
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 "soubrette", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked French headwords with 9 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list