tonne

/\tɔn\/ noun

By · Reviewed against Wiktionary & Hunspell sources ·

Letters

5 characters

Frequency Rank

#8,787

in French word usage

Misspellings

4

tracked variants

Confusables

20

similar word pairs

tonne is aFrenchnoun. It means: Unité de mesure de masse en dehors du Système international (mais dont l’usage est accepté avec le SI), valant mille kilogrammes, et dont le symbole est t. Aussi appelée tonne métrique. Pronounced \tɔn\. It ranks #8,787 in French word frequency. Often confused with Tony and tons.

Key facts for tonne
PropertyValue
Headwordtonne
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\tɔn\
Letters5
Frequency rank#8,787
Misspellings tracked4
Confusable pairs20
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Frequency rank visualization

Position of tonne in French word frequency (lower rank = more common)

Source: Wordfreq corpus

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

The French entry for tonne is 5 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \tɔn\. Corpus data places it at rank #8,787 in overall French word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 13 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.

Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 4 documented wrong-spelling variants for tonne, with forms such as "otnne", "tnone", and "tonen". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "Tony", "tons", "town", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.

No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct French form is tonne, spelled T-O-N-N-E, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.

Definition

  1. 1
    Unité de mesure de masse en dehors du Système international (mais dont l’usage est accepté avec le SI), valant mille kilogrammes, et dont le symbole est t. Aussi appelée tonne métrique.
  2. 2
    Unité de mesure de masse anglo-saxonne, valant soit 2,240 livres (tonne longue) au Royaume-Uni, soit 2,000 livres (tonne courte) aux États-Unis.
  3. 3
    Lourdeur exagérée.
  4. 4
    Quantité énorme.
  5. 5
    Individu de forte corpulence et lourdaud, bête, inapte sur le plan moral.
  6. 6
    Récipient de bois à deux fonds, en forme de muid, qui est plus grand et plus renflé par le milieu que le tonneau.
  7. 7
    Réservoir cylindrique, souvent métallique, monté sur un châssis de remorque, et servant à transporter de l’eau, du purin, du lisier.
  8. 8
    Grosse bouée cylindrique, en bois ou en métal, servant à la signalisation ou à l’amarrage.
  9. 9
    Déplacement d’eau ou poids de marchandises transportées égal à mille kilogrammes environ.
  10. 10
    Unité de mesure de force, plus correctement appelée tonne-force, correspondant à la force que la gravité terrestre exerce sur une tonne de masse.
  11. 11
    Coquille univalve de forme arrondie, synonyme de dolium (genre de mollusque).
  12. 12
    Pièce d’armure formée de lames forgées et articulées protégeant les hanches et le haut des cuisses du guerrier de la fin du Moyen Âge.
  13. 13
    Installation fixe au bord d’un plan d’eau ou « mare de tonne », dans laquelle le chasseur, nommé tonnayre, passe la nuit. La chasse à la tonne est une pratique traditionnelle de certains départements côtiers.

Synonyms

mégagramme

This word in other languages

English(English)Spanish(Español)Portuguese(Português)German(Deutsch)

Common misspellings

Also misspelled as: otnne,tnone,tonen,ttonne

Misspelling Pattern Breakdown

Relative frequency of common misspelling types for tonne

Misspelling Variants of "tonne"

otnne5tnone5tonen5ttonne6
Misspelling Variants of "tonne"

Frequency rank: #8,787 in French

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "tonne"?
"tonne" is spelled T-O-N-N-E. The IPA pronunciation is \tɔn\.
What does "tonne" mean?
As a noun, "tonne" means: Unité de mesure de masse en dehors du Système international (mais dont l’usage est accepté avec le SI), valant mille kilogrammes, et dont le symbole est t. Aussi appelée tonne métrique.
What words are commonly confused with "tonne"?
"tonne" is commonly confused with "Tony", "tons", "town". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "tonne"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "tonne" is \tɔn\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "tonne" come from?
"tonne" 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.

Nearby French words

Other entries that begin with the letter T in our French index:

All "T" wordsABCDEFGHIJKL

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Words: T

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Confusable Pairs

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Spelling Guides

Tips & reference

Data Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Frequency data from Wordfreq. Misspellings derived from Hunspell dictionaries.