van

\vɑ̃\

/\vɑ̃\/ noun

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

The verdict

“van” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #1,759) as a noun. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.

#1,759
frequency rank, French
2,061
“V” headwords
20
confusable pairs

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Instrument d’osier, en forme de coquille, qui a deux anses, et dont on se sert pour secouer le grain, les impuretés, afin de séparer la paille d’avec le bon grain.

Corpus desk

Index FR-van · van · French

van · rank #1,759 · 0 variants · 20 confusables

  • FREQ-COMMON #1,759
  • LEN-MID 3 letters
  • VOW-1 1 vowel
  • CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-MID 2,061
  • PHOTO-FINISH tourner

Nearest frequency peer: tourner (-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 « van »

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

corpus weight

What this shows Les barres placent « van » 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).

van vs vu
33% similar
van vs vi
33% similar
van vs vs
33% similar

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

Key facts for van
PropertyValue
Headwordvan
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\vɑ̃\
Letters3
Frequency rank#1,759
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs20
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Rang de corpus près des confusables de « van »

La fréquence va de la poignée de mots du quotidien (gauche) à la longue queue presque jamais vue (droite).vanse place ici:

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

L'axe est logarithmique: chaque tic marque environ dix fois moins de fréquence. Dans la même bande de rareté figurent « tourner » (#1,758), « agir » (#1,760), « sourire » (#1,757). Parmi 2,061 lemmes en « V », « van » est au #1,759. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Easy to mix with look-alikes

The spelling risk for van is neighbouring look-alikes ("vu", "vi", …), not just typos; it is anoun pronounced \vɑ̃\. Frequency #1,759 among 2,061 “V” headwords. 2 recorded senses keep meaning in play.

Zero misspellings are on record for van in our index, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "vu", "vi", "vs", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.

No borrowing history is documented 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 van, spelled V-A-N.

Definition

  1. 1
    Instrument d’osier, en forme de coquille, qui a deux anses, et dont on se sert pour secouer le grain, les impuretés, afin de séparer la paille d’avec le bon grain.
  2. 2
    Instrument identique au précédent, mais construit en matériaux étanches et utilisé lors d’opérations de baquetage.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

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

  1. Nettoyer du grain avec le van.
  2. Il savait, au contraire, le peu qu’il était, et le peu qu’on est dans ce monde, où les êtres, agités comme, dans le van, les grains et la balle, sont mêlés et séparés par la secousse du rustre ou du dieu. Encore cette idée du van agricole ou mystique représentait trop bien la mesure et l’ordre pour qu’elle pût s’appliquer exactement à la vie. Il lui sembl…

This word in other languages

winnowing fan(English)vano(Español)Worfel(Deutsch)

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 "van"?
"van" is spelled V-A-N. The IPA pronunciation is \vɑ̃\.
What does "van" mean?
As a noun, "van" means: Instrument d’osier, en forme de coquille, qui a deux anses, et dont on se sert pour secouer le grain, les impuretés, afin de séparer la paille d’avec le bon grain.
What words are commonly confused with "van"?
"van" is commonly confused with "vu", "vi", "vs". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "van"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "van" is \vɑ̃\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "van" come from?
"van" 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 "van", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

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

lac#1,775you#1,795max#1,704nez#1,827

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list