sous-marin

adj

The verdict

“sous-marin” is uncommon French (outside the top frequency list), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

Unranked
below top-frequency French
10
letters

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Qui est au fond de la mer ; qui est sous les flots de la mer.

Corpus desk

Index FR-sous-marin · sous-marin · French

sous-marin · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
  • LEN-MEGA 10 letters
  • VOW-4 4 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-THIN "S" thin
  • PHOTO-UNK Peer pending

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.

Key facts for sous-marin
PropertyValue
Headwordsous-marin
LanguageFrench
Part of speechAdjective
Letters10
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Longue queue: rang de « sous-marin » en français

sous-marinreste hors des 100.000 mots français les plus fréquents, dans la longue queue du vocabulaire technique, archaïque ou rare, là où le doute d'orthographe frappe.

Beyond rank #100,000. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

sous-marin is uncommon French outside the top frequency list, classed as anadjective. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.

The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for sous-marin, a sign its spelling follows regular French conventions. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.

Our source data has no etymology on file for this entry, 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 sous-marin, spelled S-O-U-S---M-A-R-I-N.

Definition

  1. 1
    Qui est au fond de la mer ; qui est sous les flots de la mer.
  2. 2
    Qualifie la navigation au-dessous de la surface de la mer.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

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

  1. Ce bouillonnement provenait d’une source sous-marine de naphte, et il a suffi de ce fragment de cigare pour l’enflammer.
  2. Les îles Féroë sont entièrement d’origine volcanique : elles ont surgi de toutes pièces du sein d’Amphitrite et sont, comme l’Islande, constituées de trapp de formation sous-marine.

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). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "sous-marin"?
"sous-marin" is spelled S-O-U-S---M-A-R-I-N.
What does "sous-marin" mean?
As an adjective, "sous-marin" means: Qui est au fond de la mer ; qui est sous les flots de la mer.
What language does "sous-marin" come from?
"sous-marin" 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.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list