stérile

\ste.ʁil\

/\ste.ʁil\/ adj

By · According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA) ·

The verdict

“stérile” has 11 generated spelling variants in the French index at frequency #13,697. The variants make it a useful spelling check.

#13,697
frequency rank, French
6,032
“S” headwords
11
tracked misspellings
9
confusable pairs

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Qui ne peut pas se reproduire, infécond.

Corpus desk

Index FR-sterile · stérile · French

stérile · rank #13,697 · 11 variants · 9 confusables

  • FREQ-MID #13,697
  • LEN-LONG 7 letters
  • VOW-3 3 vowels
  • CONFUS-MID 9 pairs
  • VAR-MID 11 variants
  • BOOK-DENSE 6,032
  • PHOTO-FINISH sporting

Nearest frequency peer: sporting (-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.

Pairs de rang près de l'aimant d'erreurs « stérile »

Même bande de rareté: utile si une faute tombe sur un lemme voisin

corpus weight

What this shows « stérile » siège parmi ces pairs FrequencyWords; la profondeur des fautes est suivie à part dans le graphique d'édition.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026

Visual similarity to commonly confused words

How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).

stérile vs strike
71% similar
stérile vs stériles
88% similar
stérile vs stérilet
88% similar

Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).

Key facts for stérile
PropertyValue
Headwordstérile
LanguageFrench
Part of speechAdjective
IPA\ste.ʁil\
Letters7
Frequency rank#13,697
Misspellings tracked11
Confusable pairs9
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Fréquence de l'aimant d'erreurs « stérile »

La fréquence va de la poignée de mots du quotidien (gauche) à la longue queue presque jamais vue (droite).stérilese place ici:

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

Les tics avancent en logarithme; chacun est de l'ordre de dix fois plus rare. Dans la même bande de rareté figurent « sporting » (#13,696), « surprenante » (#13,698), « splendeur » (#13,695). Parmi 6,032 lemmes en « S », « stérile » est au #13,697. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

A misspelling magnet

The generator records 11 spelling variants around stérile (IPA \ste.ʁil\), anadjective. Corpus frequency is #13,697 among 6,032 “S” headwords. Wiktionary lists 5 senses, so context still picks the gloss.

Our generated misspelling index lists 11 likely wrong-spelling variants for stérile, with forms such as "sstérile", "sterile", and "stréile". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It also participates in 9 confusable-pair relationships, "strike", "stériles", "stérilet", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.

No borrowing history is documented 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 stérile, spelled S-T-É-R-I-L-E.

Definition

  1. 1
    Qui ne peut pas se reproduire, infécond.
  2. 2
    Improductif, en parlant d’un sol.
  3. 3
    Qui ne produit rien de lui-même, qui manque d’invention, d’imagination.
  4. 4
    Qui est exempt de micro-organismes viables ; obtenu ou maintenu par stérilisation (ou conditions stériles).
  5. 5
    Se dit figurément de diverses choses.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

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

  1. Fleur stérile, celle où ne s’opère point la fécondation.
  2. Homme stérile, homme qui ne peut pas avoir d’enfants, qui n’est pas propre à la génération.

Synonyms

bréhaigneinfertile

Antonyms

fertileproductif

This word in other languages

sterile(English)estéril(Español)unfruchtbar(Deutsch)

Common misspellings

Also misspelled as:

  • sstérile
  • sterile
  • stréile
  • sttérile
  • stéirle
  • stériel
  • stérille
  • stérlie
  • stérrile
  • sétrile
  • tsérile

Misspelling Pattern Breakdown

How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of stérile - measured in single-character edits (insert, delete, or substitute a letter). Larger bars are easier to catch; one-edit slips are the sneakiest.

sstérile1sterile1stréile2sttérile1stéirle2stériel2stérille1stérlie2
Edit distance from "stérile"

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 "stérile"?
"stérile" is spelled S-T-É-R-I-L-E. The IPA pronunciation is \ste.ʁil\.
What does "stérile" mean?
As an adjective, "stérile" means: Qui ne peut pas se reproduire, infécond.
What words are commonly confused with "stérile"?
"stérile" is commonly confused with "strike", "stériles", "stérilet". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "stérile"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "stérile" is \ste.ʁil\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "stérile" come from?
"stérile" is a French word. PlainSpell's reference spans five languages -- English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German -- with definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for each.
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 "stérile", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked French headwords with 7 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

sphères#13,694Schmidt#13,691toiture#13,705résisté#13,687

Similar misspelling depth

Headwords with a similar count of attested misspellings (11 here; floor ≥5).

retenues11 variantsremords11 variantsrationnel11 variantsapprouvée11 variants

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list