tournoyer

\tuʁ.nwa.je\

/\tuʁ.nwa.je\/ verb

The verdict

“tournoyer” is uncommon French (frequency #54,962 among 3,703 “T” headwords), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

#54,962
frequency rank, French
3,703
“T” headwords

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Tourner en faisant plusieurs tours.

Corpus desk

Index FR-tournoyer · tournoyer · French

tournoyer · rank #54,962 · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-RARE #54,962
  • LEN-LONG 9 letters
  • VOW-5 5 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-MID 3,703
  • PHOTO-FINISH torticolis

Nearest frequency peer: torticolis (-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 « tournoyer »

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

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026
Key facts for tournoyer
PropertyValue
Headwordtournoyer
LanguageFrench
Part of speechVerb
IPA\tuʁ.nwa.je\
Letters9
Frequency rank#54,962
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Longue queue: rang de « tournoyer » en français

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

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

Les tics avancent en logarithme; chacun est de l'ordre de dix fois plus rare. Voisins rares de la même bande: « torticolis » (#54,961), « toniques » (#54,960), « traduisez » (#54,964). Parmi 3,703 lemmes en « T », « tournoyer » est au #54,962. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

tournoyer is uncommon French at frequency #54,962 among 3,703 “T” headwords, classed as averb, transcribed \tuʁ.nwa.je\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 3 senses are on record.

No misspelling variants are generated for tournoyer in our index, suggesting the orthography follows predictable French patterns. Our dataset records no confusable match here, which typically means the spelling is too distinctive to be mistaken for another word.

Our source data has no etymology on file for this entry, so its spelling is easiest to reason about phoneme by phoneme, absent a documented history. The correct French form is tournoyer, spelled T-O-U-R-N-O-Y-E-R.

Definition

  1. 1
    Tourner en faisant plusieurs tours.
  2. 2
    Faire une suite de tours et de détours.
  3. 3
    Biaiser, chercher des détours, ne pas aller droit au but.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

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

  1. Le vaquero ricana et fit tournoyer son lasso autour de sa tête.
  2. Ne remarques-tu pas cette vapeur suffocante et sans issue qui déjà tournoie en spirales noires autour de cette chambre ?

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 "tournoyer"?
"tournoyer" is spelled T-O-U-R-N-O-Y-E-R. The IPA pronunciation is \tuʁ.nwa.je\.
What does "tournoyer" mean?
As a verb, "tournoyer" means: Tourner en faisant plusieurs tours.
How do you pronounce "tournoyer"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "tournoyer" is \tuʁ.nwa.je\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "tournoyer" come from?
"tournoyer" is a French word. PlainSpell's reference spans five languages -- English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German -- with definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for each.
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 "tournoyer", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked French headwords with 9 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list