wow
\waw\
The verdict
“wow” is a regularly-used French word, ranked #3,885 in French word frequency and used as an interjection.
- #3,885
- frequency rank, French
- 3
- letters
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Exprime l’étonnement, l’émerveillement ou l’admiration.
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 | wow |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Interjection |
| IPA | \waw\ |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #3,885 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “wow” sits in French frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The French entry for wow is 3 letters long, classified as an interjection, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \waw\. Corpus data places it at rank #3,885 in overall French word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "Exprime l’étonnement, l’émerveillement ou l’admiration.".
wow doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, suggesting the orthography follows predictable French patterns. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "wu", "wp", "WTF", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, so its spelling pattern is best understood through pronunciation rather than a traceable origin. The correct French form is wow, spelled W-O-W.
Definition
- 1Exprime l’étonnement, l’émerveillement ou l’admiration.
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 "wow"?
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Using “wow”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct French spelling is W-O-W - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as \waw\ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “wu” - see the side-by-side comparison. wow vs wu
- Browse more French words and confusable pairs in the same reference. French words
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.