FrançoisvswatersWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: François is a name, waters is an unknown, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“François” is a name and “waters” is an unknown - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#11,052
“François” frequency rank
#36,115
“waters” frequency rank
47167
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature François waters
Definition männlicher Vorname Plural des Substantives water

Letter map: François vs waters

Shared letters muted; letters that set François and waters apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. François runs 8 letters (CCVCCVVC) against waters's 6 (CVCVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

8 ch
François
6 ch
waters

Role in the sentence - François and waters

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: François is aname and watersanunknown. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 47167, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

François is recorded at frequency rank #11,052, classified as aname, pronounced […]. waters is at rank #36,115, tagged as anunknown, pronounced […].

Glosses for this pair are partially populated in our dataset, but the full side-by-side definitions above should still guide you to the right choice.

With a confusion score of 47167, this pair ranks #1,293,887 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of François vs waters

Shared letters: ars. Private to "François": finoç. Private to "waters": etw.

"François" · 8 letters · shape CCVCCVVC  ·  "waters" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • watersawters · waetrs · waterrs · waterss · watesr · watres · watters · wtaers

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "François" and "waters" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "François" is a name and "waters" an unknown, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "François" or "waters" show up more?
"François" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #11,052 in our German list, against #36,115 for "waters". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

You've compared "François" and "waters". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "François" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "waters" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,293,887 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "François" and "waters" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "puzzles vs waters". Nearby pair
  • Recorded mistypes exist for at least one side of this pair, useful when a spell-checker or OCR lands on the wrong form. See mistypes

Confusion rank #1,293,887 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list