sylphide
\sil.fid\
The verdict
“sylphide” is uncommon French (frequency #94,314 among 394,209 “S” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #94,314
- frequency rank, French
- 394,209
- “S” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Sylphe femelle, génie ailé qui vit dans les airs.
Corpus desk
Index FR-sylphide · sylphide · French
sylphide · rank #94,314 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #94,314
- LEN-LONG 8 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 394,209
- PHOTO-FINISH synthétisées
Nearest frequency peer: synthétisées (+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.
Frequency neighbourhood for “sylphide”
Lower corpus rank = more everyday usage (inverted bar length for readability)
- sva
sva
5,691 corpus weight
- swagger
swagger
5,690 corpus weight
- sylphide
sylphide
5,687 corpus weight
- synthétisées
synthétisées
5,686 corpus weight
- sécrétées
sécrétées
5,685 corpus weight
- séparables
séparables
5,684 corpus weight
What this shows Bars show where “sylphide” sits against the nearest ranked French headwords in the FrequencyWords band, not a reprint of letter-browse containment.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | sylphide |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \sil.fid\ |
| Letters | 8 |
| Frequency rank | #94,314 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “sylphide” sits in French frequency
Rare enough to double-check
sylphide is uncommon French at frequency #94,314 among 394,209 “S” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed \sil.fid\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 3 senses are on record.
The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for sylphide, suggesting the orthography follows predictable French patterns. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, suggesting its spelling stands apart enough that readers rarely confuse it with something else.
Wiktionary doesn't record an etymology for this headword, so its spelling is best explained by sound-to-letter mapping rather than etymology. The correct French form is sylphide, spelled S-Y-L-P-H-I-D-E.
Definition
- 1Sylphe femelle, génie ailé qui vit dans les airs.
- 2Femme svelte d’une grande beauté.
- 3Femme idéale ou idéalisée, plus imaginaire que réelle, objet de rêveries amoureuses.
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.
PlainSpell is rendered directly from structured Wiktionary extracts and open word-frequency lists, no number is typed in by an editor. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error. Data current as of May 6, 2026. Primary sources: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) and FrequencyWords.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Similar French words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "sylphide", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked French headwords with 8 letters (nearest by frequency rank).
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.