zouave
\zwav\
The verdict
“zouave” is uncommon French (frequency #60,490 among 240 “Z” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #60,490
- frequency rank, French
- 240
- “Z” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Soldat d’un corps d’infanterie créé en Algérie en 1830 et dissous en 1962.
Corpus desk
Index FR-zouave · zouave · French
zouave · rank #60,490 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #60,490
- LEN-LONG 6 letters
- VOW-4 4 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 240
- PHOTO-FINISH Zohra
Nearest frequency peer: Zohra (-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 « zouave »
Bande clairsemée: les barres inversent le rang pour que le rare se lise plus court
- zadig
zadig
39,513 corpus weight
- Zohra
Zohra
39,512 corpus weight
- zouave
zouave
39,511 corpus weight
- ânerie
ânerie
39,510 corpus weight
- échauffent
échauffent
39,509 corpus weight
- échouant
échouant
39,508 corpus weight
What this shows Vue de longue queue: où « zouave » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | zouave |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \zwav\ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #60,490 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Longue queue: rang de « zouave » en français
Rare enough to double-check
zouave is uncommon French at frequency #60,490 among 240 “Z” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed \zwav\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 4 senses are on record.
The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for zouave, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, which typically means the spelling is too distinctive to be mistaken for another word.
This headword's origin isn't recorded in our source data, leaving phoneme-to-grapheme mapping as the best guide to its spelling rather than a borrowing history. The correct French form is zouave, spelled Z-O-U-A-V-E.
Definition
- 1Soldat d’un corps d’infanterie créé en Algérie en 1830 et dissous en 1962.
- 2Soldat au service du Vatican à une époque.
- 3Membre des « zouaves civils », une association catholique du XIXᵉ siècle.
- 4Individu excentrique.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how zouave appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Là étaient les débris vivants des meurtrières rencontres des premiers jours: dragons, zouaves, chasseurs de Vincennes, turcos, soldats de la ligne, hussards, lanciers, tous hâves, silencieux, mornes, traînant ce qui leur restait de souffle.
À Nogent, encore des soldats. Artilleurs en grands manteaux, mobiles de Normandie joufflus et ronds de partout comme des hommes, petits zouaves encapuchonnés et lestes, lignards voûtés, coupés en deux, leurs mouchoirs bleus sous le képi autour des oreilles, tout cela grouille et flâne par les rues, se bouscule à la porte de deux épiciers restés ouverts. U…
This word in other languages
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 "zouave", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked French headwords with 6 letters (nearest by frequency rank).