spectre

/\spɛktʁ\/ noun

Letters

7 characters

Frequency Rank

#6,558

in French word usage

Misspellings

11

tracked variants

Confusables

6

similar word pairs

spectre is aFrenchnoun. It means: Fantôme, apparition d’un mort. Pronounced \spɛktʁ\. It ranks #6,558 in French word frequency. Often confused with spectres and spectrum.

Key facts for spectre
PropertyValue
Headwordspectre
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\spɛktʁ\
Letters7
Frequency rank#6,558
Misspellings tracked11
Confusable pairs6
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Frequency rank visualization

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

Source: Wordfreq corpus

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

The French entry for spectre is 7 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \spɛktʁ\. Corpus data places it at rank #6,558 in overall French word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 9 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.

Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 11 documented wrong-spelling variants for spectre, with forms such as "psectre", "sepctre", and "spcetre". 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, "spectres", "spectrum", "secte", 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 spectre, spelled S-P-E-C-T-R-E, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.

Definition

  1. 1
    Fantôme, apparition d’un mort.
  2. 2
    Souvenir de personnes disparues.
  3. 3
    Évocation ou apparition effrayante.
  4. 4
    Personne hâve et maigre à faire peur.
  5. 5
    Chimère qu’on se forme dans l’esprit.
  6. 6
    Ensemble des rayonnements de différentes longueurs d’onde, qui résultent de la décomposition de la lumière par un prisme, d’un élément chimique à l’état excité, etc.
  7. 7
    Ensemble des valeurs propres d'un opérateur ou d'une matrice.
  8. 8
    Ensemble de choses assez semblables dont les variations sont déterminées.
  9. 9
    Ensemble des agents infectieux, contaminants ou pathogènes qui sont atteints par une substance curative.

This word in other languages

Common misspellings

Also misspelled as: psectre,sepctre,spcetre,specctre,specrte,specter,spectrre,specttre,spetcre,sppectre,sspectre

Misspelling Pattern Breakdown

Relative frequency of common misspelling types for spectre

Misspelling Variants of "spectre"

psectre7sepctre7spcetre7specctre8specrte7specter7spectrre8specttre8
Misspelling Variants of "spectre"

Frequency rank: #6,558 in French

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "spectre"?
"spectre" is spelled S-P-E-C-T-R-E. The IPA pronunciation is \spɛktʁ\.
What does "spectre" mean?
As a noun, "spectre" means: Fantôme, apparition d’un mort.
What words are commonly confused with "spectre"?
"spectre" is commonly confused with "spectres", "spectrum", "secte". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "spectre"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "spectre" is \spɛktʁ\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "spectre" come from?
"spectre" 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.