veiller au grain
\vɛ.je o ɡʁɛ̃\
The verdict
“veiller au grain” is uncommon French (outside the top frequency list), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency French
- 16
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Prendre garde à un grain, à un violent coup de vent qui menace.
Corpus desk
Index FR-veiller-au-grain · veiller au grain · French
veiller au grain · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 16 letters
- VOW-7 7 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "V" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
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.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | veiller au grain |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | \vɛ.je o ɡʁɛ̃\ |
| Letters | 16 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « veiller au grain » en français
Rare enough to double-check
veiller au grain is uncommon French outside the top frequency list, classed as averb, transcribed \vɛ.je o ɡʁɛ̃\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
No generated misspelling entries exist for veiller au grain in our index, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable French rules. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, since its spelling is unusual enough that it doesn't cluster with a lookalike.
Our source data has no etymology on file 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 veiller au grain, spelled V-E-I-L-L-E-R- -A-U- -G-R-A-I-N.
Definition
- 1Prendre garde à un grain, à un violent coup de vent qui menace.
- 2Être très vigilant et se préparer à réagir.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how veiller au grain appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Timoniers vigilants et imperturbables sous l’ouragan, veillant au grain, nautoniers habiles et réfléchis qui, au moment opportun, préveniez rapidement, d’un judicieux coup de barre, les embardées meurtrières du navire […]
Pour un peu, l’infortuné mari allait dire qu’on lui ôtait le pain de la bouche ! — Veillons au grain ! gronda-t-il.
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.