superintendant

\sy.pɛ.ʁɛ̃.tɑ̃.dɑ̃\

/\sy.pɛ.ʁɛ̃.tɑ̃.dɑ̃\/ noun

The verdict

“superintendant” is uncommon French (frequency #88,130 among 6,032 “S” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

#88,130
frequency rank, French
6,032
“S” headwords

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Intendant en chef.

Corpus desk

Index FR-superintendant · superintendant · French

superintendant · rank #88,130 · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-RARE #88,130
  • LEN-MEGA 14 letters
  • VOW-5 5 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-DENSE 6,032
  • PHOTO-FINISH Sundgau

Nearest frequency peer: Sundgau (-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 « superintendant »

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 « superintendant » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026
Key facts for superintendant
PropertyValue
Headwordsuperintendant
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\sy.pɛ.ʁɛ̃.tɑ̃.dɑ̃\
Letters14
Frequency rank#88,130
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Longue queue: rang de « superintendant » en français

Cette échelle va du noyau du français courant (gauche) jusqu'à la traîne des formes rares (droite).superintendanttombe 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: « Sundgau » (#88,129), « supériorités » (#88,131), « sues » (#88,128). Parmi 6,032 lemmes en « S », « superintendant » est au #88,130. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

superintendant is uncommon French at frequency #88,130 among 6,032 “S” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed \sy.pɛ.ʁɛ̃.tɑ̃.dɑ̃\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.

No misspelling variants are generated for superintendant in our index, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. Our dataset records no confusable match here, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.

No borrowing history is documented for this entry, so its spelling is easiest to reason about phoneme by phoneme, absent a documented history. The correct French form is superintendant, spelled S-U-P-E-R-I-N-T-E-N-D-A-N-T.

Definition

  1. 1
    Intendant en chef.
  2. 2
    Grade de la police britannique, supérieur à celui d’inspecteur-chef et à inférieur celui de superintendant en chef. Il correspond en France au commissaire de police.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

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

  1. Tout ce que nos officiers ont fait, c'est pour assurer la sécurité du public et des citoyens de Toronto, qui ont aussi des droits, a dit le superintendant Jeff McGuire, de la Police de Toronto.
  2. Le superintendant de l'unité des crimes économiques de la GRC, Stéphane Bonin, a déclaré que le jugement montrait que personne n'était au-dessus de la loi, pas même les politiciens.

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 "superintendant"?
"superintendant" is spelled S-U-P-E-R-I-N-T-E-N-D-A-N-T. The IPA pronunciation is \sy.pɛ.ʁɛ̃.tɑ̃.dɑ̃\.
What does "superintendant" mean?
As a noun, "superintendant" means: Intendant en chef.
How do you pronounce "superintendant"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "superintendant" is \sy.pɛ.ʁɛ̃.tɑ̃.dɑ̃\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "superintendant" come from?
"superintendant" 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 "superintendant", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked French headwords with 14 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list