anciens
\ɑ̃.sjɛ̃\
The verdict
“anciens” has 10 generated spelling variants in the French index at frequency #1,155. The variants make it a useful spelling check.
- #1,155
- frequency rank, French
- 6,727
- “A” headwords
- 10
- tracked misspellings
- 10
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Masculin pluriel de ancien.
Corpus desk
Index FR-anciens · anciens · French
anciens · rank #1,155 · 10 variants · 10 confusables
- FREQ-COMMON #1,155
- LEN-LONG 7 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-MID 10 pairs
- VAR-MID 10 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 6,727
- PHOTO-FINISH écrire
Nearest frequency peer: écrire (-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 « anciens »
Même bande de rareté: utile si une faute tombe sur un lemme voisin
- visage
visage
98,849 corpus weight
- écrire
écrire
98,847 corpus weight
- anciens
anciens
98,846 corpus weight
- avion
avion
98,845 corpus weight
- calme
calme
98,844 corpus weight
- chien
chien
98,843 corpus weight
What this shows « anciens » 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 | anciens |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | \ɑ̃.sjɛ̃\ |
| Letters | 7 |
| Frequency rank | #1,155 |
| Misspellings tracked | 10 |
| Confusable pairs | 10 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Fréquence de l'aimant d'erreurs « anciens »
A misspelling magnet
The generator records 10 spelling variants around anciens (IPA \ɑ̃.sjɛ̃\), anadjective. Corpus frequency is #1,155 among 6,727 “A” headwords. Dominant gloss: "Masculin pluriel de ancien.".
Our generated misspelling index lists 10 likely wrong-spelling variants for anciens, with forms such as "acniens", "ancciens", and "anceins". 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 10 confusable-pair relationships, "ancrés", "ancrées", "ancient", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
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 anciens, spelled A-N-C-I-E-N-S.
Definition
- 1Masculin pluriel de ancien.
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how anciens appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Si l’essor du phénomène associatif (loto des pompiers, des musiciens à la Sainte-Cécile, du club du troisième âge, des parents d’élèves, des anciens combattants, des boulistes, de la paroisse, des chasseurs…) atteste de mutations sociales et favorise des ambiances particulières, il montre aussi la permanence des besoins de la communauté.
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as:
- acniens
- ancciens
- anceins
- ancienns
- ancienss
- anciesn
- ancines
- anicens
- annciens
- naciens
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of anciens - counted as single-character edits (an insertion, a deletion, or a substituted letter). The larger the bar, the easier the typo is to spot; one-edit slips are the ones that sneak past readers.
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 "anciens"?
What does "anciens" mean?
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Is PlainSpell free to use?
Similar French words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "anciens", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked French headwords with 7 letters (nearest by frequency rank).
Similar misspelling depth
Headwords with a similar count of attested misspellings (10 here; floor ≥5).