vieux comme les rues

/\vjø kɔm le ʁy\/ adj

The verdict

“vieux comme les rues” is outside the top-ranked French vocabulary, used as an adjective — the kind of word writers most often double-check.

Unranked
below top-frequency French
20
letters

Dominant Wiktionary sense: Qui existe depuis très longtemps.

Key facts for vieux comme les rues
PropertyValue
Headwordvieux comme les rues
LanguageFrench
Part of speechAdjective
IPA\vjø kɔm le ʁy\
Letters20
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Where “vieux comme les rues” sits in French frequency

vieux comme les rues falls outside the top-100,000 ranked French words — the long-tail zone of technical, archaic, or low-frequency vocabulary, exactly where readers second-guess spellings most.

Beyond rank #100,000. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

The French entry for vieux comme les rues is 20 letters long, classified as an adjective, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \vjø kɔm le ʁy\. 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: "Qui existe depuis très longtemps.".

No misspelling variants are generated for vieux comme les rues in our index, suggesting the orthography follows predictable French patterns. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.

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. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct French form is vieux comme les rues, spelled V-I-E-U-X- -C-O-M-M-E- -L-E-S- -R-U-E-S, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.

Definition

  1. 1
    Qui existe depuis très longtemps.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "vieux comme les rues"?
"vieux comme les rues" is spelled V-I-E-U-X- -C-O-M-M-E- -L-E-S- -R-U-E-S. The IPA pronunciation is \vjø kɔm le ʁy\.
What does "vieux comme les rues" mean?
As an adjective, "vieux comme les rues" means: Qui existe depuis très longtemps.
How do you pronounce "vieux comme les rues"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "vieux comme les rues" is \vjø kɔm le ʁy\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "vieux comme les rues" come from?
"vieux comme les rues" 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.

Using “vieux comme les rues”

The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.

  • The one correct French spelling is V-I-E-U-X- -C-O-M-M-E- -L-E-S- -R-U-E-S — every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
  • Say it as \vjø kɔm le ʁy\ (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

Nearby French words

Other entries that begin with the letter V in our French index:

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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.