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FRENCH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

chenille.

caterpillar

8 characters3 syllables approx.Français language

Meaning & usage

noun/ʃə.nij//ʃnij//ʃə.nɪj/Quebec/ʃnɪj/Quebec

  1. caterpillar

    feminine

  2. chenille

    feminine

  3. caterpillar track, snow chain

    feminine

  4. whirligig (fairground attraction)

    feminine
Where this word comes from

Inherited from Latin canīcula (“little dog”) (because of a caterpillar's head). Doublet of canicule.

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chenille studiochenille workshello, chenille

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.