terre
\tɛʁ\
The verdict
“terre” is in the everyday core of French, ranked #386 in French word frequency and used as a noun.
- #386
- frequency rank, French
- 5
- letters
- 5
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Sol sur lequel nous marchons, sur lequel les maisons sont construites, qui produit et nourrit les végétaux.
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 | terre |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \tɛʁ\ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #386 |
| Misspellings tracked | 5 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “terre” sits in French frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The French entry for terre is 5 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \tɛʁ\. Corpus data places it at rank #386 in overall French word frequency, putting it firmly in the everyday core of the language. Wiktionary records 19 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 5 likely wrong-spelling variants for terre, with forms such as "etrre", "tere", and "terer". 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 20 confusable-pair relationships, "tre", "tête", "tiré", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
This entry carries no recorded etymology, so any spelling logic here comes from how the word's sounds map to letters, not a documented origin story. The correct French form is terre, spelled T-E-R-R-E.
Definition
- 1Sol sur lequel nous marchons, sur lequel les maisons sont construites, qui produit et nourrit les végétaux.
- 2Sol où l’on inhume les morts.
- 3Se dit du sol considéré par rapport à la culture, des diverses natures, des divers aspects qu’il peut avoir.
- 4Argile dont les potiers se servent pour faire leurs ouvrages, et qu’on emploie aussi à quelques autres usages.
- 5Ce qui compose le sol considéré comme une matière ou substance particulière.
- 6Domaine, fonds rural.
- 7Partie solide de la surface du globe, par opposition à la mer.
- 8Étendue d’un pays.
- 9Profondeurs d’un continent, d’une région.
- 10Grandes étendues de pays ; parties importantes de la surface du globe.
- 11Une planète habitable au sens général, hormis la nôtre, qui s’écrit alors la Terre.
- 12Tout le globe terrestre ; ensemble de la planète que nous habitons.
- 13Le monde dans lequel nous vivons, par opposition au ciel.
- 14L’ensemble de l’humanité.
- 15Grand nombre de personnes, par rapport au lieu et aux circonstances où l’on se trouve.
- 16Les biens et des plaisirs de la vie présente.
- 17Un des quatre éléments.
- 18Oxyde non réductible par combustion.
- 19Tout conducteur de potentiel 0 V ; prise de terre.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: etrre,tere,terer,trere,tterre
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of terre - 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
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Using “terre”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct French spelling is T-E-R-R-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as \tɛʁ\ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “tre” - see the side-by-side comparison. terre vs tre
- 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.