Which to use
“africaine” and “africaines” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #4,035
- “africaine” frequency rank
- #8,326
- “africaines” frequency rank
- 12361
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | africaine | africaines |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Féminin singulier de africain. | Féminin pluriel de africain. |
Same sound, different letters: africaine vs africaines
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 9 letters. africaine runs 9 letters (VCCVCVVCV) against africaines's 10 (VCCVCVVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Ear matches; page differs - africaine and africaines
This is the hard kind. africaine and africaines are pronounced identically (\a.fʁi.kɛn\) and both work as anadjective. 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) - “africaine” sits inside “africaines”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 12361, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
africaine is recorded at frequency rank #4,035, classified as anadj, pronounced \a.fʁi.kɛn\. africaines is at rank #8,326, tagged as anadj, pronounced \a.fʁi.kɛn\.
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 12361, this pair ranks #405,576 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of africaine vs africaines
Shared letters: acefinr. Private to "africaine": -. Private to "africaines": s.
"africaine" · 9 letters · shape VCCVCVVCV · "africaines" · 10 letters · shape VCCVCVVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- africaine ← affricaine · afircaine · afrciaine · afriacine · africaien · africainne · africanie · africcaine
- africaines ← affricaines · afircaines · afrciaines · afriacines · africaiens · africainess · africainnes · africainse
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "africaine" and "africaines" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Which is more common, "africaine" or "africaines"?
After this comparison
You've separated the homophone pair "africaine" / "africaines". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.
- Full dictionary entry for "africaine" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "africaines" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #405,576 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "africaine" and "africaines" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "africaine vs african". 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 #405,576 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.