vieille fille
\vjɛj.fij\
The verdict
“vieille fille” is uncommon French (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency French
- 13
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Femme célibataire assez âgée.
Corpus desk
Index FR-vieille-fille · vieille fille · French
vieille fille · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 13 letters
- VOW-6 6 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 | vieille fille |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \vjɛj.fij\ |
| Letters | 13 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « vieille fille » en français
Rare enough to double-check
vieille fille is uncommon French outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun, transcribed \vjɛj.fij\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Femme célibataire assez âgée.".
Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for vieille fille, a sign its spelling follows regular French conventions. No confusable counterpart is on file for this word, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.
No explicit etymology string is stored 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 vieille fille, spelled V-I-E-I-L-L-E- -F-I-L-L-E.
Definition
- 1Femme célibataire assez âgée.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how vieille fille appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Sylvie jeta sur mademoiselle Habert un de ces regards de vieille fille à vieille fille, atroce et doucereux.
Quant à moi, jamais je ne serai vieille fille. Je me ferai mère par la bienfaisance…
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.