ze
\zø\
The verdict
“ze” is a moderately-common French word, ranked #24,448 in French word frequency and used as an article.
- #24,448
- frequency rank, French
- 2
- letters
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Variante orthographique de the. Permet de signaler que l’objet dont on parle est unique, que c’est le meilleur, l’idéal. À l’oral, on en fait le mot principal de la phrase en lui donnant une intona...
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 | ze |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Article |
| IPA | \zø\ |
| Letters | 2 |
| Frequency rank | #24,448 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “ze” sits in French frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The French entry for ze is 2 letters long, classified as an article, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \zø\. Corpus data places it at rank #24,448 in overall French word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. Wiktionary records 2 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
No generated misspelling entries exist for ze in our index, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "zu", "zi", "zo", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
No documented word history exists for this headword, leaving phoneme-to-grapheme mapping as the best guide to its spelling rather than a borrowing history. The correct French form is ze, spelled Z-E.
Definition
- 1Variante orthographique de the. Permet de signaler que l’objet dont on parle est unique, que c’est le meilleur, l’idéal. À l’oral, on en fait le mot principal de la phrase en lui donnant une intonation très forte.
- 2Permet de mettre en emphase la personne dont on parle. Parfois complété de big.
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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Using “ze”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct French spelling is Z-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as \zø\ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “zu” - see the side-by-side comparison. ze vs zu
- 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.