travail
\tʁa.vaj\
The verdict
“travail” is in the everyday core of French, ranked #194 in French word frequency and used as a noun.
- #194
- frequency rank, French
- 7
- letters
- 10
- tracked misspellings
- 7
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Labeur, application à une tâche, effort soutenu pour faire quelque chose, en parlant de l’esprit comme du corps.
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 | travail |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \tʁa.vaj\ |
| Letters | 7 |
| Frequency rank | #194 |
| Misspellings tracked | 10 |
| Confusable pairs | 7 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “travail” sits in French frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The French entry for travail is 7 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \tʁa.vaj\. Corpus data places it at rank #194 in overall French word frequency, putting it firmly in the everyday core of the language. Wiktionary records 13 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 10 likely wrong-spelling variants for travail, with forms such as "rtavail", "tarvail", and "traavil". Each of these forms differs from the correct spelling by one small edit: a doubled letter, a dropped silent letter, or a substituted vowel. It also participates in 7 confusable-pair relationships, "Travis", "travel", "travaux", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, so its spelling is easiest explained by how it's pronounced rather than where it came from. The correct French form is travail, spelled T-R-A-V-A-I-L.
Definition
- 1Labeur, application à une tâche, effort soutenu pour faire quelque chose, en parlant de l’esprit comme du corps.
- 2Activité professionnelle ; emploi.
- 3Manière dont on travaille habituellement.
- 4Ouvrage même, de quelque nature qu’il soit, qui est produit par le labeur.
- 5Ouvrage de l’esprit, étude historique, philosophique ou scientifique.
- 6Manière dont l’ouvrage est fait.
- 7Ouvrage qui est à faire ou auquel on travaille présentement.
- 8Action des forces de la nature.
- 9Première période de l’accouchement caractérisée par l’apparition de contractions douloureuses de l’utérus et l’effacement du col de l’utérus. Les douleurs de l’enfantement.
- 10Produit d’une force appliquée sur une distance. L’unité SI de travail (d’énergie) est le joule.
- 11Labeur humain considéré comme facteur essentiel de la production.
- 12Labeur humain considéré sous le rapport des conflits qu’il soulève et des règlements qu’il y faut apporter.
- 13Ensemble des exercices que l’on fait faire à un cheval, entraînement.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: rtavail,tarvail,traavil,travaill,travali,travial,travvail,trravail,trvaail,ttravail
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of travail - expressed in single-character edits (insert, delete, or swap one letter). Bigger bars stand out at a glance; a one-edit slip is the hardest to catch.
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 "travail"?
What does "travail" mean?
What words are commonly confused with "travail"?
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Is PlainSpell free to use?
Using “travail”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct French spelling is T-R-A-V-A-I-L - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as \tʁa.vaj\ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “Travis” - see the side-by-side comparison. travail vs Travis
- 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.