zèle
\zɛl\
The verdict
“zèle” has 6 generated spelling variants in the French index at frequency #16,781. The variants make it a useful spelling check.
- #16,781
- frequency rank, French
- 240
- “Z” headwords
- 6
- tracked misspellings
- 14
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Vive ardeur pour appliquer les consignes et les règlements à la lettre, ou plus généralement pour le maintien ou le succès de quelque chose en poussant à l’extrême le travail sans prendre la moindr...
Corpus desk
Index FR-zele · zèle · French
zèle · rank #16,781 · 6 variants · 14 confusables
- FREQ-MID #16,781
- LEN-MID 4 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-MID 14 pairs
- VAR-MID 6 variants
- BOOK-MID 240
- PHOTO-FINISH Zelda
Nearest frequency peer: Zelda (-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.
Pairs de rang près de l'aimant d'erreurs « zèle »
Même bande de rareté: utile si une faute tombe sur un lemme voisin
- watts
watts
83,224 corpus weight
- Zelda
Zelda
83,221 corpus weight
- zèle
zèle
83,220 corpus weight
- éclairée
éclairée
83,219 corpus weight
- écoliers
écoliers
83,218 corpus weight
- écolo
écolo
83,217 corpus weight
What this shows « zèle » siège parmi ces pairs FrequencyWords; la profondeur des fautes est suivie à part dans le graphique d'édition.
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 | zèle |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \zɛl\ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #16,781 |
| Misspellings tracked | 6 |
| Confusable pairs | 14 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Fréquence de l'aimant d'erreurs « zèle »
A misspelling magnet
The generator records 6 spelling variants around zèle (IPA \zɛl\), anoun. Corpus frequency is #16,781 among 240 “Z” headwords. Wiktionary lists 2 senses, so context still picks the gloss.
Our generated misspelling index lists 6 likely wrong-spelling variants for zèle, with forms such as "zele", "zlèe", and "zzèle". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It also participates in 14 confusable-pair relationships, "zen", "zoé", "ZEP", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
This entry carries no recorded etymology, so its spelling is easiest to reason about phoneme by phoneme, absent a documented history. The correct French form is zèle, spelled Z-È-L-E.
Definition
- 1Vive ardeur pour appliquer les consignes et les règlements à la lettre, ou plus généralement pour le maintien ou le succès de quelque chose en poussant à l’extrême le travail sans prendre la moindre initiative pour l’alléger en l’interprétant.
- 2Ardeur religieuse.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how zèle appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Il s'entoura des détectives les plus renommés dont il stimula le zèle par la promesse, en cas de succès, d'une magnifique récompense.
Le marquis, en voyant le zèle de Pierre, s’était finement abrité derrière lui. À quoi bon se mettre en vue, quand un homme à fortes épaules veut bien endosser toutes les sottises d’un parti.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as:
- zele
- zlèe
- zzèle
- zèel
- zèlle
- èzle
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of zèle - measured in single-character edits (insert, delete, or substitute a letter). Larger bars are easier to catch; one-edit slips are the sneakiest.
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 "zèle"?
What does "zèle" mean?
What words are commonly confused with "zèle"?
How do you pronounce "zèle"?
What language does "zèle" come from?
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Similar French words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "zèle", 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).