zon

\zɔ̃\

/\zɔ̃\/ onomatopoeia

The verdict

“zon” is uncommon French (frequency #76,247 among 240 “Z” headwords), classed as an onomatopoeia. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

#76,247
frequency rank, French
240
“Z” headwords

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Onomatopée indiquant un bruit soudain, un coup subit.

Corpus desk

Index FR-zon · zon · French

zon · rank #76,247 · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-RARE #76,247
  • LEN-MID 3 letters
  • VOW-1 1 vowel
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-MID 240
  • PHOTO-FINISH zircon

Nearest frequency peer: zircon (-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 « zon »

Bande clairsemée: les barres inversent le rang pour que le rare se lise plus court

corpus weight

What this shows Vue de longue queue: où « zon » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026
Key facts for zon
PropertyValue
Headwordzon
LanguageFrench
Part of speechOnomatopoeia
IPA\zɔ̃\
Letters3
Frequency rank#76,247
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Longue queue: rang de « zon » en français

De gauche à droite: le peu qui porte la parole quotidienne, puis la longue queue quasi invisible.zontombe dans cette queue de rareté:

#1#100#1K#10K#100K
← used constantlyrarely used →

L'échelle est logarithmique (chaque tic ≈ 10× plus rare). Voisins rares de la même bande: « zircon » (#76,246), « écarteur » (#76,248), « zinzins » (#76,245). Parmi 240 lemmes en « Z », « zon » est au #76,247. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

zon is uncommon French at frequency #76,247 among 240 “Z” headwords, classed as anonomatopoeia, transcribed \zɔ̃\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Onomatopée indiquant un bruit soudain, un coup subit.".

zon has no tracked misspelling variants, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.

This entry's etymology isn't recorded, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. The correct French form is zon, spelled Z-O-N.

Definition

  1. 1
    Onomatopée indiquant un bruit soudain, un coup subit.

Recorded use

Wiktionary example

These source excerpts show how zon appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. C’est une bonne vieille fille de cinquante ans. Elle demeure au-dessous de nous. D’abord elle était contente : comme elle n’a pas d’horloge, ça lui donnait l’heure. « Vlin ! Vlan ! zon ! zon ! – voilà le petit Chose qu’on fouette ; il est temps de faire mon café au lait. »

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

How do you spell "zon"?
"zon" is spelled Z-O-N. The IPA pronunciation is \zɔ̃\.
What does "zon" mean?
As an onomatopoeia, "zon" means: Onomatopée indiquant un bruit soudain, un coup subit.
How do you pronounce "zon"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "zon" is \zɔ̃\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "zon" come from?
"zon" is a French word. PlainSpell's reference spans five languages -- English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German -- with definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for each.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Similar French words by spelling shape

Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "zon", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked French headwords with 3 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list