useful

adj

The verdict

“useful” is uncommon French (frequency #86,286 among 456 “U” headwords), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

#86,286
frequency rank, French
456
“U” headwords

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Utile.

Corpus desk

Index FR-useful · useful · French

useful · rank #86,286 · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-RARE #86,286
  • LEN-LONG 6 letters
  • VOW-3 3 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-MID 456
  • PHOTO-FINISH unidos

Nearest frequency peer: unidos (-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 « useful »

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

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026
Key facts for useful
PropertyValue
Headworduseful
LanguageFrench
Part of speechAdjective
Letters6
Frequency rank#86,286
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Longue queue: rang de « useful » en français

La fréquence va de la poignée de mots du quotidien (gauche) à la longue queue presque jamais vue (droite).usefultombe dans cette queue de rareté:

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

L'axe est logarithmique: chaque tic marque environ dix fois moins de fréquence. Voisins rares de la même bande: « unidos » (#86,285), « unexpected » (#86,284), « vabres » (#86,288). Parmi 456 lemmes en « U », « useful » est au #86,286. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

useful is uncommon French at frequency #86,286 among 456 “U” headwords, classed as anadjective. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Utile.".

We couldn't generate a plausible misspelling set for useful, a sign its spelling follows regular French conventions. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, which typically means the spelling is too distinctive to be mistaken for another word.

This entry carries no recorded etymology, leaving phoneme-to-grapheme mapping as the best guide to its spelling rather than a borrowing history. The correct French form is useful, spelled U-S-E-F-U-L.

Definition

  1. 1
    Utile.

Recorded use

Wiktionary example

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

  1. Based on the performance of our Fibonacci numbers program you might be tempted to conclude that recursive solutions are too slow to be useful.

Synonyms

Antonyms

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 "useful"?
"useful" is spelled U-S-E-F-U-L.
What does "useful" mean?
As an adjective, "useful" means: Utile.
What language does "useful" come from?
"useful" 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.

Similar French words by spelling shape

Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "useful", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked French headwords with 6 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list