commences
\kɔ.mɑ̃s\
The verdict
“commences” is a regularly-used French word, ranked #9,800 in French word frequency and used as a verb.
- #9,800
- frequency rank, French
- 9
- letters
- 12
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Deuxième personne du singulier de l’indicatif présent de commencer.
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 | commences |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | \kɔ.mɑ̃s\ |
| Letters | 9 |
| Frequency rank | #9,800 |
| Misspellings tracked | 12 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “commences” sits in French frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The French entry for commences is 9 letters long, classified as a verb, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \kɔ.mɑ̃s\. Corpus data places it at rank #9,800 in overall French word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. Wiktionary records 2 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 12 likely wrong-spelling variants for commences, with forms such as "ccommences", "cmomences", and "comemnces". 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 20 confusable-pair relationships, "commerce", "communes", "commente", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
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 commences, spelled C-O-M-M-E-N-C-E-S.
Definition
- 1Deuxième personne du singulier de l’indicatif présent de commencer.
- 2Deuxième personne du singulier du subjonctif présent de commencer.
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: ccommences,cmomences,comemnces,comences,commecnes,commencces,commencess,commencse,commenecs,commennces,commneces,ocmmences
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of commences - measured in single-character edits (insert, delete, or substitute a letter). Larger bars are easier to catch; one-edit slips are the sneakiest.
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 "commences"?
What does "commences" mean?
What words are commonly confused with "commences"?
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Is PlainSpell free to use?
Using “commences”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct French spelling is C-O-M-M-E-N-C-E-S - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as \kɔ.mɑ̃s\ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “commerce” - see the side-by-side comparison. commences vs commerce
- Browse more French words and confusable pairs in the same reference. French words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.