surplomb
\syʁ.plɔ̃\
The verdict
“surplomb” is uncommon French (frequency #51,767 among 6,032 “S” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #51,767
- frequency rank, French
- 6,032
- “S” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - État de ce qui n’est pas à plomb, de ce dont le haut avance plus que la base ou le pied ; on le dit surtout en parlant de constructions.
Corpus desk
Index FR-surplomb · surplomb · French
surplomb · rank #51,767 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #51,767
- LEN-LONG 8 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 6,032
- PHOTO-FINISH surpassent
Nearest frequency peer: surpassent (-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 « surplomb »
Bande clairsemée: les barres inversent le rang pour que le rare se lise plus court
- surhomme
surhomme
48,236 corpus weight
- surpassent
surpassent
48,235 corpus weight
- surplomb
surplomb
48,234 corpus weight
- survivront
survivront
48,233 corpus weight
- sédentarité
sédentarité
48,232 corpus weight
- sélectionne…
sélectionneurs
48,231 corpus weight
What this shows Vue de longue queue: où « surplomb » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | surplomb |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \syʁ.plɔ̃\ |
| Letters | 8 |
| Frequency rank | #51,767 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « surplomb » en français
Rare enough to double-check
surplomb is uncommon French at frequency #51,767 among 6,032 “S” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed \syʁ.plɔ̃\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
We couldn't generate a plausible misspelling set for surplomb, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
No borrowing history is documented for this entry, so any spelling logic here comes from how the word's sounds map to letters, not a documented origin story. The correct French form is surplomb, spelled S-U-R-P-L-O-M-B.
Definition
- 1État de ce qui n’est pas à plomb, de ce dont le haut avance plus que la base ou le pied ; on le dit surtout en parlant de constructions.
- 2Posture de condescendance, de domination vis-à-vis de quelqu’un ou d’un groupe considéré comme plus faible ou inférieur.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how surplomb appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Ce mur est en surplomb, il penche.
Des perdrix grandes ouvertes surgirent sans bruit du vallon, et se posèrent à trente pas sur notre gauche, sous le surplomb de la barre grise.
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
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Similar French words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "surplomb", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked French headwords with 8 letters (nearest by frequency rank).