zarb
\zaʁb\
The verdict
“zarb” is uncommon French (frequency #73,659 among 240 “Z” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #73,659
- frequency rank, French
- 240
- “Z” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Instrument de percussion digitale originaire d’Iran, composé d’une seule pièce de bois creuse de forme cylindrique dont l’ouverture est fermée par une peau tendue.
Corpus desk
Index FR-zarb · zarb · French
zarb · rank #73,659 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #73,659
- LEN-MID 4 letters
- VOW-1 1 vowel
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 240
- PHOTO-FINISH Zarco
Nearest frequency peer: Zarco (+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 « zarb »
Bande clairsemée: les barres inversent le rang pour que le rare se lise plus court
- zarb
zarb
26,342 corpus weight
- Zarco
Zarco
26,341 corpus weight
- zijn
zijn
26,340 corpus weight
- Zimbabwéen
Zimbabwéen
26,339 corpus weight
- éblouissant…
éblouissantes
26,337 corpus weight
- électoralem…
électoralement
26,335 corpus weight
What this shows Vue de longue queue: où « zarb » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | zarb |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \zaʁb\ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #73,659 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « zarb » en français
Rare enough to double-check
zarb is uncommon French at frequency #73,659 among 240 “Z” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed \zaʁb\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Instrument de percussion digitale originaire d’Iran, composé d’une seule pièce de bois creuse de forme cylindrique dont l’ouverture est fermée par une peau tendue.".
The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for zarb, typically a sign the spelling maps closely to how the word sounds. 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 documented word history exists for this headword, so its spelling is easiest to reason about phoneme by phoneme, absent a documented history. The correct French form is zarb, spelled Z-A-R-B.
Definition
- 1Instrument de percussion digitale originaire d’Iran, composé d’une seule pièce de bois creuse de forme cylindrique dont l’ouverture est fermée par une peau tendue.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how zarb appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Beaucoup préféraient l’arak, la vodka ou le vin, mais je n’observai aucune attitude disgracieuse, les plus éméchés se contentant d’accompagner en sourdine les musiciens engagés par le maître de céans, un joueur de târ, un virtuose du zarb, un flûtiste.
Depuis dix ans, on assiste au retour en force du tambourin daf qui double le zarb dans beaucoup d’ensembles.
Synonyms
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
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Similar French words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "zarb", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked French headwords with 4 letters (nearest by frequency rank).