Tamil

\ta.mil\

/\ta.mil\/ noun

The verdict

“Tamil” is uncommon French (frequency #54,946 among 3,703 “T” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

#54,946
frequency rank, French
3,703
“T” headwords

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Variante de Tamoul.

Corpus desk

Index FR-tamil · Tamil · French

Tamil · rank #54,946 · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-RARE #54,946
  • LEN-MID 5 letters
  • VOW-2 2 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-MID 3,703
  • PHOTO-FINISH tacheté

Nearest frequency peer: tacheté (-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 « Tamil »

Bande clairsemée: les barres inversent le rang pour que le rare se lise plus court

corpus weight

What this shows Vue de longue queue: où « Tamil » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026
Key facts for Tamil
PropertyValue
HeadwordTamil
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\ta.mil\
Letters5
Frequency rank#54,946
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Longue queue: rang de « Tamil » en français

De gauche à droite: le peu qui porte la parole quotidienne, puis la longue queue quasi invisible.Tamiltombe dans cette queue de rareté:

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

L'échelle est logarithmique (chaque tic ≈ 10× plus rare). Voisins rares de la même bande: « tacheté » (#54,945), « tapissé » (#54,947), « tabloïds » (#54,944). Parmi 3,703 lemmes en « T », « Tamil » est au #54,946. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

Tamil is uncommon French at frequency #54,946 among 3,703 “T” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed \ta.mil\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Variante de Tamoul.".

Tamil has no tracked misspelling variants, a sign its spelling follows regular French conventions. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, since its spelling is unusual enough that it doesn't cluster with a lookalike.

No borrowing history is documented for this entry, 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 Tamil, spelled T-A-M-I-L.

Definition

  1. 1
    Variante de Tamoul.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

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

  1. On dit même que les Tamils anciens vouaient une véritable vénération aux arbres qu'ils considéraient comme la demeure des esprits: le moindre abattage pouvait alors provoquer la colère d'une divinité et engendrer maladies, disettes ou mauvaises récoltes.
  2. Dans les pays où le bouddhisme est devenu l'idéologie officielle, il s'est souvent empressé de soutenir l'effort de guerre. A l'heure actuelle, par exemple, les bouddhistes de Sri Lanka prônent ouvertement la lutte contre les Tamils indépendantistes. Ce qui est vrai du Zen japonais l'est donc également pour d'autres formes de bouddhisme.

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 "Tamil"?
"Tamil" is spelled T-A-M-I-L. The IPA pronunciation is \ta.mil\.
What does "Tamil" mean?
As a noun, "Tamil" means: Variante de Tamoul.
How do you pronounce "Tamil"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "Tamil" is \ta.mil\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "Tamil" come from?
"Tamil" is a French word. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for this and other words across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German on PlainSpell.
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 "Tamil", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked French headwords with 5 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list