sur les chapeaux de roues
\syʁ lɛ ʃa.po də ʁu\
The verdict
“sur les chapeaux de roues” is outside the top-ranked French vocabulary, used as an adverb - the kind of word writers most often double-check.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency French
- 25
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Rapidement, voire trop vite, en parlant d’un véhicule qui démarre.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | sur les chapeaux de roues |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Adverb |
| IPA | \syʁ lɛ ʃa.po də ʁu\ |
| Letters | 25 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “sur les chapeaux de roues” sits in French frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The French entry for sur les chapeaux de roues is 25 letters long, classified as an adverb, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \syʁ lɛ ʃa.po də ʁu\. It sits outside the most-frequent rank tiers, which is often why uncommon words generate more spelling variants per reader. Wiktionary records 3 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for sur les chapeaux de roues, a sign its spelling follows regular French conventions. We don't track a confusable pairing for this entry, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.
This headword's origin isn't recorded in our source data, 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 sur les chapeaux de roues, spelled S-U-R- -L-E-S- -C-H-A-P-E-A-U-X- -D-E- -R-O-U-E-S.
Definition
- 1Rapidement, voire trop vite, en parlant d’un véhicule qui démarre.
- 2Très rapidement.
- 3Situation qui se déroule de manière peu commune et inattendue.
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
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Using “sur les chapeaux de roues”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct French spelling is S-U-R- -L-E-S- -C-H-A-P-E-A-U-X- -D-E- -R-O-U-E-S - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as \syʁ lɛ ʃa.po də ʁu\ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Browse more French words and confusable pairs in the same reference. French words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.