Ubu

\y.by\

/\y.by\/ name

By · According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA) ·

The verdict

“Ubu” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #49,991) as a proper noun. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.

#49,991
frequency rank, French
456
“U” headwords
20
confusable pairs

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - La pièce de théâtre Ubu roi d’Alfred Jarry.

Corpus desk

Index FR-ubu · Ubu · French

Ubu · rank #49,991 · 0 variants · 20 confusables

  • FREQ-MID #49,991
  • LEN-MID 3 letters
  • VOW-2 2 vowels
  • CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-MID 456
  • PHOTO-FINISH ulule

Nearest frequency peer: ulule (+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.

Voisins de fréquence du confusable « Ubu »

Pairs de poids proche dans le corpus, séparés des confusables ci-dessous

corpus weight

What this shows Les barres placent « Ubu » face aux lemmes français les plus proches par rang, pas un reprint du bureau des confusables.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026

Visual similarity to commonly confused words

How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).

Ubu vs un
0% similar
Ubu vs up
0% similar
Ubu vs UE
33% similar

Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).

Key facts for Ubu
PropertyValue
HeadwordUbu
LanguageFrench
Part of speechProper noun
IPA\y.by\
Letters3
Frequency rank#49,991
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs20
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Rang de corpus près des confusables de « Ubu »

De gauche à droite: le peu qui porte la parole quotidienne, puis la longue queue quasi invisible.Ubuse place ici:

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

L'échelle est logarithmique (chaque tic ≈ 10× plus rare). Dans la même bande de rareté figurent « ulule » (#49,992), « télégraphique » (#49,989), « twister » (#49,988). Parmi 456 lemmes en « U », « Ubu » est au #49,991. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Easy to mix with look-alikes

The spelling risk for Ubu is neighbouring look-alikes ("un", "up", …), not just typos; it is aproper noun pronounced \y.by\. Frequency #49,991 among 456 “U” headwords. 3 recorded senses keep meaning in play.

Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for Ubu, a straightforward case of a spelling with little room for common typos. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "un", "up", "UE", 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. The correct French form is Ubu, spelled U-B-U.

Definition

  1. 1
    La pièce de théâtre Ubu roi d’Alfred Jarry.
  2. 2
    Despote cynique, cruel, stupide, cupide, mesquin et vulgaire, personnage éponyme de la pièce d’Alfred Jarry.
  3. 3
    Surnom donné à tout personnage, réel ou fictif, imbu de pouvoir, violent et grotesque, marqué par une forme de démesure aussi comique qu’effrayante.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

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

  1. Il fallait voir, le jeudi 10 décembre 1896, tous ces pauvres petits bonhommes et toutes ces pauvres petites bonnes femmes, esthètes infortunés des deux sexes qui, l’œil noyé, tendaient le cou et ouvraient à demi la bouche pour communier en l’honneur d’Ubu.
  2. Père Ubu. — Merdre. Mère Ubu. — Oh ! voilà du joli, Père Ubu, vous eſtes un fort grand voyou.

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 "Ubu"?
"Ubu" is spelled U-B-U. The IPA pronunciation is \y.by\.
What does "Ubu" mean?
As a proper noun, "Ubu" means: La pièce de théâtre Ubu roi d’Alfred Jarry.
What words are commonly confused with "Ubu"?
"Ubu" is commonly confused with "un", "up", "UE". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "Ubu"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "Ubu" is \y.by\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "Ubu" come from?
"Ubu" is a French word. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for this and other words across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German on PlainSpell.
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 "Ubu", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked French headwords with 3 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

tif#49,975suu#49,960zob#50,023och#49,829

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list