wendigo

\wɛn.di.ɡo\

/\wɛn.di.ɡo\/ noun

The verdict

“wendigo” is uncommon French (frequency #94,395 among 549 “W” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

#94,395
frequency rank, French
549
“W” headwords

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Créature surnaturelle, maléfique et anthropophage, issue de la mythologie des autochtones algonquiens du Canada.

Corpus desk

Index FR-wendigo · wendigo · French

wendigo · rank #94,395 · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-RARE #94,395
  • LEN-LONG 7 letters
  • VOW-3 3 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-MID 549
  • PHOTO-FINISH Wikisource

Nearest frequency peer: Wikisource (+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 « wendigo »

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

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026
Key facts for wendigo
PropertyValue
Headwordwendigo
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\wɛn.di.ɡo\
Letters7
Frequency rank#94,395
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Longue queue: rang de « wendigo » en français

De gauche à droite: le peu qui porte la parole quotidienne, puis la longue queue quasi invisible.wendigotombe 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: « Wikisource » (#94,396), « Wissant » (#94,397), « Woippy » (#94,398). Parmi 549 lemmes en « W », « wendigo » est au #94,395. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

wendigo is uncommon French at frequency #94,395 among 549 “W” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed \wɛn.di.ɡo\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Créature surnaturelle, maléfique et anthropophage, issue de la mythologie des autochtones algonquiens du Canada.".

No generated misspelling entries exist for wendigo in our index, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable French rules. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, which typically means the spelling is too distinctive to be mistaken for another word.

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. The correct French form is wendigo, spelled W-E-N-D-I-G-O.

Definition

  1. 1
    Créature surnaturelle, maléfique et anthropophage, issue de la mythologie des autochtones algonquiens du Canada.

Recorded use

Wiktionary example

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

  1. À quatre cents milles de là, en haut des rivières, ceux des « sauvages » qui avaient fui les missionnaires et les marchands étaient accroupis autour d’un feu de cyprès sec, devant leurs tentes, et promenaient leurs regards sur un monde encore rempli pour eux comme aux premiers jours de puissances occultes, mystérieuses : le Wendigo géant qui défend qu’on…

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); 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 "wendigo"?
"wendigo" is spelled W-E-N-D-I-G-O. The IPA pronunciation is \wɛn.di.ɡo\.
What does "wendigo" mean?
As a noun, "wendigo" means: Créature surnaturelle, maléfique et anthropophage, issue de la mythologie des autochtones algonquiens du Canada.
How do you pronounce "wendigo"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "wendigo" is \wɛn.di.ɡo\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "wendigo" come from?
"wendigo" 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 "wendigo", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked French headwords with 7 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list