what
\wat\
The verdict
“what” has 6 generated spelling variants in the French index at frequency #6,911. The variants make it a useful spelling check.
- #6,911
- frequency rank, French
- 549
- “W” headwords
- 6
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Quoi ? Comment ?
Corpus desk
Index FR-what · what · French
what · rank #6,911 · 6 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-COMMON #6,911
- LEN-MID 4 letters
- VOW-1 1 vowel
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-MID 6 variants
- BOOK-MID 549
- PHOTO-FINISH volontiers
Nearest frequency peer: volontiers (-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.
Frequency neighbourhood for “what”
Lower corpus rank = more everyday usage (inverted bar length for readability)
- veiller
veiller
93,093 corpus weight
- visé
visé
93,092 corpus weight
- volontiers
volontiers
93,091 corpus weight
- what
what
93,090 corpus weight
- Wilson
Wilson
93,089 corpus weight
- xi
xi
93,088 corpus weight
What this shows Bars show where “what” sits against the nearest ranked French headwords in the FrequencyWords band, not a reprint of letter-browse containment.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | what |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Interjection |
| IPA | \wat\ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #6,911 |
| Misspellings tracked | 6 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Où “what” se place dans la fréquence du français
A misspelling magnet
The generator records 6 spelling variants around what (IPA \wat\), aninterjection. Corpus frequency is #6,911 among 549 “W” headwords. Dominant gloss: "Quoi ? Comment ?".
Our generated misspelling index lists 6 likely wrong-spelling variants for what, with forms such as "hwat", "waht", and "whatt". Each of these forms differs from the correct spelling by one small edit: a doubled letter, a dropped silent letter, or a substituted vowel. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "who", "why", "WTA", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
No borrowing history is documented for this entry, so its spelling is best read as a straightforward mapping from sound to letter. The correct French form is what, spelled W-H-A-T.
Definition
- 1Quoi ? Comment ?
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as:
- hwat
- waht
- whatt
- whhat
- whta
- wwhat
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of what - expressed in single-character edits (insert, delete, or swap one letter). Bigger bars stand out at a glance; a one-edit slip is the hardest to catch.
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 "what"?
What does "what" mean?
What words are commonly confused with "what"?
How do you pronounce "what"?
What language does "what" come from?
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Similar French words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "what", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked French headwords with 4 letters (nearest by frequency rank).
Similar misspelling depth
Headwords with a similar count of attested misspellings (6 here; floor ≥5).
What to do next
You've looked up "what". Here's where to go from here.
- "what" maps to 20 confusable pairs in this vintage; the highest-scored is "who". View pair
- 6 edit-distance misspelling variants are generated for spell-check research on this headword. See variants
- Usage frequency rank #6,911 among French headwords in this corpus. Corpus statistics
- Browse more French words in the "W" letter cohort. W–Z browse
PlainSpell is a reference corpus, not spelling advice. Verify unusual forms in context.
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.