spathe
\spat\
The verdict
“spathe” is uncommon French (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency French
- 6
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Nom donné à une lourde et courte épée utilisée par les Gaulois.
Corpus desk
Index FR-spathe · spathe · French
spathe · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-LONG 6 letters
- VOW-2 2 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.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | spathe |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \spat\ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « spathe » en français
Rare enough to double-check
spathe is uncommon French outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun, transcribed \spat\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 3 senses are on record.
spathe doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, a sign its spelling follows regular French conventions. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, since its spelling is unusual enough that it doesn't cluster with a lookalike.
No documented word history exists for this headword, leaving phoneme-to-grapheme mapping as the best guide to its spelling rather than a borrowing history. The correct French form is spathe, spelled S-P-A-T-H-E.
Definition
- 1Nom donné à une lourde et courte épée utilisée par les Gaulois.
- 2Grande bractée généralement membraneuse entourant une inflorescence entière, ordinairement sèche ou coriace, qui, dans certaines plantes, telles que les palmiers, les narcisses, les arums, les posidonies, etc., enveloppe en formant un sac ou un cornet toutes les parties de la fructification et se fend ou se crève lorsqu’elle a acquis un certain développement.
- 3Feuille modifiée enveloppant l’épi de maïs.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how spathe appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
G. Lefevre découvrit dans l’une de ces dernières tombes de très belles armes dont un angon (arme franque à deux crocs) et une spathe, ou grande épée avec inscription sur la garde.
La spathe de l’ail et de l’iris.
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.