amplivsempliTell them apart

Which to use

“ampli” and “empli” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#33,113
“ampli” frequency rank
#38,779
“empli” frequency rank
71892
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature ampli empli
Definition Amplificateur (tous sens). Opération qui consiste à remplir des moules avec du sirop de sucre cuit dans une sucrerie, ou avec du savon dans une savonnerie.

Same sound, different letters: ampli vs empli

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 4 letters. ampli and empli follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (VCCCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

5 ch
ampli
5 ch
empli

Homophone desk: ampli vs empli

This is the hard kind. ampli and empli are pronounced identically (\ɑ̃.pli\) 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 a single letter - a in “ampli” becomes e in “empli”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 71892, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ampli is recorded at frequency rank #33,113, classified as anoun, pronounced \ɑ̃.pli\. empli is at rank #38,779, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ɑ̃.pli\.

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 71892, this pair ranks #45,903 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of ampli vs empli

Shared letters: ilmp. Private to "ampli": a. Private to "empli": e.

"ampli" · 5 letters · shape VCCCV  ·  "empli" · 5 letters · shape VCCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • ampli ← amlpi · ammpli · ampil · amplli · amppli · apmli · mapli
  • empli ← emlpi · emmpli · empil · emplli · emppli · epmli · mepli

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "ampli" for "empli" ever safe?
No. They are pronounced the same (\ɑ̃.pli\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
In ordinary French text, does "ampli" or "empli" show up more?
"ampli" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #33,113 in our French list, against #38,779 for "empli". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

"ampli" and "empli" share a sound, keep the gloss open, then jump to the headword or a nearby trap.

  • Full dictionary entry for "ampli" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "empli" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #45,903 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "ampli" and "empli" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "empli vs emplit". 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 #45,903 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list