yes
\jɛs\
The verdict
“yes” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #9,417) as a noun. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.
- #9,417
- frequency rank, French
- 198
- “Y” headwords
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 2, 2026) - Oui d’un anglophone ou d’un pays anglophone.
Corpus desk
Index FR-yes · yes · French
yes · rank #9,417 · 0 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-COMMON #9,417
- LEN-MID 3 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 198
- PHOTO-FINISH Watson
Nearest frequency peer: Watson (-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.
Frequency neighbourhood for “yes”
Lower corpus rank = more everyday usage (inverted bar length for readability)
- vérités
vérités
90,587 corpus weight
- vétérinaire
vétérinaire
90,586 corpus weight
- Watson
Watson
90,585 corpus weight
- yes
yes
90,584 corpus weight
- écarts
écarts
90,583 corpus weight
- échéance
échéance
90,582 corpus weight
What this shows Bars show where “yes” sits against the nearest ranked French headwords in the FrequencyWords band, not a reprint of letter-browse containment.
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 | yes |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \jɛs\ |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #9,417 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “yes” sits in French frequency
Easy to mix with look-alikes
The spelling risk for yes is neighbouring look-alikes ("yo", "yu", …), not just typos; it is anoun pronounced \jɛs\. Frequency #9,417 among 198 “Y” headwords. Gloss: "Oui d’un anglophone ou d’un pays anglophone.".
yes has no tracked misspelling variants, suggesting the orthography follows predictable French patterns. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "yo", "yu", "yi", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
This entry carries no recorded etymology, leaving phoneme-to-grapheme mapping as the best guide to its spelling rather than a borrowing history. The correct French form is yes, spelled Y-E-S.
Definition
- 1Oui d’un anglophone ou d’un pays anglophone.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how yes appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Clara. — Yes. Maggy. — Oh ! vous parlez l’anglais ? Clara. — Je dis "Yes", voilà tout.
Il participait aux grands dîners organisés pour un yes ou pour un no.
Antonyms
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.
PlainSpell is rendered directly from structured Wiktionary extracts and open word-frequency lists, no number is typed in by an editor. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error. Data current as of September 2, 2026. Primary sources: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) and FrequencyWords.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Similar French words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "yes", not the corpus desk frequency band.
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.