tabou
\ta.bu\
The verdict
“tabou” is a regularly-used French word, ranked #9,925 in French word frequency and used as an adjective.
- #9,925
- frequency rank, French
- 5
- letters
- 6
- tracked misspellings
- 14
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Relatif à un interdit de caractère religieux.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | tabou |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | \ta.bu\ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #9,925 |
| Misspellings tracked | 6 |
| Confusable pairs | 14 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “tabou” sits in French frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The French entry for tabou is 5 letters long, classified as an adjective, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \ta.bu\. Corpus data places it at rank #9,925 in overall French word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. Wiktionary records 3 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 6 likely wrong-spelling variants for tabou, with forms such as "atbou", "tabbou", and "tabuo". Each of these forms differs from the correct spelling by one small edit: a doubled letter, a dropped silent letter, or a substituted vowel. It also participates in 14 confusable-pair relationships, "tou", "tau", "trou", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
This entry carries no recorded etymology, leaving phoneme-to-grapheme mapping as the best guide to its spelling rather than a borrowing history. The correct French form is tabou, spelled T-A-B-O-U.
Definition
- 1Relatif à un interdit de caractère religieux.
- 2Se dit d’une chose ou d’un être qu’il n’est pas permis de toucher, ou d’un sujet qu’il n’est pas permis ou très délicat d’aborder sans choquer ou provoquer de fortes réactions de susceptibilité.
- 3Se dit d’un sujet sans gravité mais que l’on se garde d’aborder, notamment pour des questions d’amour-propre.
Synonyms
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: atbou,tabbou,tabuo,taobu,tbaou,ttabou
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of tabou - 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.
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 "tabou"?
What does "tabou" mean?
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Is PlainSpell free to use?
Using “tabou”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct French spelling is T-A-B-O-U - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as \ta.bu\ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “tou” - see the side-by-side comparison. tabou vs tou
- 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.