sympathie

\sɛ̃.pa.ti\

/\sɛ̃.pa.ti\/ noun

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

The verdict

“sympathie” has 14 generated spelling variants in the French index at frequency #8,626. The variants make it a useful spelling check.

#8,626
frequency rank, French
6,032
“S” headwords
14
tracked misspellings
3
confusable pairs

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Penchant instinctif qui attire des personnes les unes vers les autres.

Corpus desk

Index FR-sympathie · sympathie · French

sympathie · rank #8,626 · 14 variants · 3 confusables

  • FREQ-COMMON #8,626
  • LEN-LONG 9 letters
  • VOW-4 4 vowels
  • CONFUS-LOW 3 pairs
  • VAR-HIGH 14 variants
  • BOOK-DENSE 6,032
  • PHOTO-FINISH surplus

Nearest frequency peer: surplus (-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 « sympathie »

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

corpus weight

What this shows « sympathie » 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).

sympathie vs sympathies
90% similar
sympathie vs sympathique
82% similar
sympathie vs sympathiser
82% similar

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

Key facts for sympathie
PropertyValue
Headwordsympathie
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\sɛ̃.pa.ti\
Letters9
Frequency rank#8,626
Misspellings tracked14
Confusable pairs3
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Fréquence de l'aimant d'erreurs « sympathie »

De gauche à droite: le peu qui porte la parole quotidienne, puis la longue queue quasi invisible.sympathiese place ici:

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

L'échelle est logarithmique (chaque tic ≈ 10× plus rare). Dans la même bande de rareté figurent « surplus » (#8,625), « tatouage » (#8,627), « supposer » (#8,624). Parmi 6,032 lemmes en « S », « sympathie » est au #8,626. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

A misspelling magnet

The generator records 14 spelling variants around sympathie (IPA \sɛ̃.pa.ti\), anoun. Corpus frequency is #8,626 among 6,032 “S” headwords. Wiktionary lists 5 senses, so context still picks the gloss.

Our generated misspelling index lists 14 likely wrong-spelling variants for sympathie, with forms such as "smypathie", "ssympathie", and "symapthie". 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 3 confusable-pair relationships, "sympathies", "sympathique", "sympathiser", since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.

This entry carries no recorded etymology, so its spelling is easiest to reason about phoneme by phoneme, absent a documented history. The correct French form is sympathie, spelled S-Y-M-P-A-T-H-I-E.

Definition

  1. 1
    Penchant instinctif qui attire des personnes les unes vers les autres.
  2. 2
    L’accord avec le sentiment d’autrui, le pouvoir que nous avons de participer aux peines et aux plaisirs les uns des autres. Syn. : empathie
  3. 3
    Bienveillance.
  4. 4
    Concordance ou correspondance de certaines choses entre elles.
  5. 5
    État de deux cordes, ou plus généralement de deux corps sonores, dont le second se met à résonner lorsque le premier produit un son.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

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

  1. Ce point de sympathie n’empêchait pas cependant qu’on aperçût entre elles des différences assez remarquables.
  2. Son chapeau mou rabattu sur les yeux, sa grosse figure joviale et colorée, son foulard, son manteau marron et je ne sais quelle familiarité courtoise et bon enfant lui assuraient partout la sympathie.

Antonyms

antipathie

This word in other languages

sympathy(English)simpatía(Español)Sympathie(Deutsch)

Common misspellings

Also misspelled as:

  • smypathie
  • ssympathie
  • symapthie
  • symmpathie
  • sympahtie
  • sympathei
  • sympathhie
  • sympatihe
  • sympatthie
  • symppathie
  • symptahie
  • sypmathie
  • syympathie
  • ysmpathie

Misspelling Pattern Breakdown

How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of sympathie - counted as single-character edits (an insertion, a deletion, or a substituted letter). The larger the bar, the easier the typo is to spot; one-edit slips are the ones that sneak past readers.

smypathie2ssympathie1symapthie2symmpathie1sympahtie2sympathei2sympathhie1sympatihe2
Edit distance from "sympathie"

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 "sympathie"?
"sympathie" is spelled S-Y-M-P-A-T-H-I-E. The IPA pronunciation is \sɛ̃.pa.ti\.
What does "sympathie" mean?
As a noun, "sympathie" means: Penchant instinctif qui attire des personnes les unes vers les autres.
What words are commonly confused with "sympathie"?
"sympathie" is commonly confused with "sympathies", "sympathique", "sympathiser". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "sympathie"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "sympathie" is \sɛ̃.pa.ti\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "sympathie" come from?
"sympathie" is a French word. PlainSpell covers definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German.
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 "sympathie", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked French headwords with 9 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

subissent#8,622résistant#8,614éternelle#8,641regardait#8,610

Similar misspelling depth

Headwords with a similar count of attested misspellings (14 here; floor ≥5).

reprennent14 variantsportables14 variantsordinaires14 variantsminorités14 variants

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list