tapenade

\ta.pə.nad\

/\ta.pə.nad\/ noun

The verdict

“tapenade” is uncommon French (frequency #80,699 among 3,703 “T” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

#80,699
frequency rank, French
3,703
“T” headwords

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Préparation culinaire à base d’olives noires ou vertes, de câpres et quelques anchois dessalés et broyés avec de l’ail et de l’huile d’olive.

Corpus desk

Index FR-tapenade · tapenade · French

tapenade · rank #80,699 · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-RARE #80,699
  • LEN-LONG 8 letters
  • VOW-4 4 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-MID 3,703
  • PHOTO-FINISH Taoufik

Nearest frequency peer: Taoufik (-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 « tapenade »

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 « tapenade » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026
Key facts for tapenade
PropertyValue
Headwordtapenade
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\ta.pə.nad\
Letters8
Frequency rank#80,699
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Longue queue: rang de « tapenade » en français

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

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

L'axe est logarithmique: chaque tic marque environ dix fois moins de fréquence. Voisins rares de la même bande: « Taoufik » (#80,698), « tapissés » (#80,700), « taras » (#80,701). Parmi 3,703 lemmes en « T », « tapenade » est au #80,699. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

tapenade is uncommon French at frequency #80,699 among 3,703 “T” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed \ta.pə.nad\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Préparation culinaire à base d’olives noires ou vertes, de câpres et quelques anchois dessalés et broyés avec de l’ail et de l’huile d’olive.".

Zero misspellings are on record for tapenade in our index, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. This entry stands alone in our confusable dataset, suggesting its spelling stands apart enough that readers rarely confuse it with something else.

This entry's etymology isn't recorded, so its spelling is best explained by sound-to-letter mapping rather than etymology. The correct French form is tapenade, spelled T-A-P-E-N-A-D-E.

Definition

  1. 1
    Préparation culinaire à base d’olives noires ou vertes, de câpres et quelques anchois dessalés et broyés avec de l’ail et de l’huile d’olive.

Recorded use

Wiktionary example

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

  1. J’ai tellement mangé de tapenade à l’apéritif que je n’ai plus faim.

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

How do you spell "tapenade"?
"tapenade" is spelled T-A-P-E-N-A-D-E. The IPA pronunciation is \ta.pə.nad\.
What does "tapenade" mean?
As a noun, "tapenade" means: Préparation culinaire à base d’olives noires ou vertes, de câpres et quelques anchois dessalés et broyés avec de l’ail et de l’huile d’olive.
How do you pronounce "tapenade"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "tapenade" is \ta.pə.nad\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "tapenade" come from?
"tapenade" 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 "tapenade", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked French headwords with 8 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list