Which to use
“acolyte” and “acolytes” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #25,873
- “acolyte” frequency rank
- #27,678
- “acolytes” frequency rank
- 53551
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | acolyte | acolytes |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Ministre liturgique (jusqu’au concile Vatican II : clerc promu à l’un des quatre ordres mineurs) dont l’office est de servir à l’autel le prêtre et le diacre lors des célébrations liturgiques. | Pluriel de acolyte. |
Same sound, different letters: acolyte vs acolytes
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 7 letters.
Ear matches; page differs - acolyte and acolytes
This is the hard kind. acolyte and acolytes are pronounced identically (\a.kɔ.lit\) and both work as anoun. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “acolyte” sits inside “acolytes”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 53551, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
acolyte is recorded at frequency rank #25,873, classified as anoun, pronounced \a.kɔ.lit\. acolytes is at rank #27,678, tagged as anoun, pronounced \a.kɔ.lit\.
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 53551, this pair ranks #139,967 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of acolyte vs acolytes
Shared letters: aceloty. Private to "acolyte": -. Private to "acolytes": s.
"acolyte" · 7 letters · shape VCVCVCV · "acolytes" · 8 letters · shape VCVCVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "acolyte" for "acolytes" ever safe?
Which is more common, "acolyte" or "acolytes"?
Useful next steps
You've separated the homophone pair "acolyte" / "acolytes". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.
- Full dictionary entry for "acolyte" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "acolytes" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #139,967 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "acolyte" and "acolytes" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "acolyte vs acompte". 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 #139,967 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.