umami
\u.ma.mi\
The verdict
“umami” is outside the top-ranked French vocabulary, used as a noun - the kind of word writers most often double-check.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency French
- 5
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - L’une des cinq saveurs fondamentales, pouvant se décrire comme savoureux, donnée par l’acide glutamique ou par l’acide inosinique, que l’on retrouve, par exemple, dans les bouillons de viandes, les...
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | umami |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \u.ma.mi\ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “umami” sits in French frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The French entry for umami is 5 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \u.ma.mi\. It sits outside the most-frequent rank tiers, which is often why uncommon words generate more spelling variants per reader. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "L’une des cinq saveurs fondamentales, pouvant se décrire comme savoureux, donnée par l’acide glutamique ou par l’acide inosinique, que l’on retrouve, par exemple, dans les bouillons de viandes, les...".
umami has no tracked misspelling variants, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. Our dataset records no confusable match here, since its spelling is unusual enough that it doesn't cluster with a lookalike.
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 umami, spelled U-M-A-M-I.
Definition
- 1L’une des cinq saveurs fondamentales, pouvant se décrire comme savoureux, donnée par l’acide glutamique ou par l’acide inosinique, que l’on retrouve, par exemple, dans les bouillons de viandes, les fromages, les champignons, certains thés et, plus généralement, dans la cuisine asiatique.
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). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “umami”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct French spelling is U-M-A-M-I - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as \u.ma.mi\ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- 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.