animervsanimesTell them apart

Quick tell: animer is a verb, animes is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“animer” is a verb and “animes” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#12,714
“animer” frequency rank
#38,136
“animes” frequency rank
50850
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature animer animes
Definition Douer de vie un corps organisé. Pluriel de anime.

Where the eye mixes animer and animes

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. animer and animes follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (VCVCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

6 ch
animer
6 ch
animes

Why the eye confuses animer with animes

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: animer is \a.ni.me\ while animes is \a.nim\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by a single letter - r in “animer” becomes s in “animes”, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 50850, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

animer is recorded at frequency rank #12,714, classified as averb, pronounced \a.ni.me\. animes is at rank #38,136, tagged as anoun, pronounced \a.nim\.

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 50850, this pair ranks #159,449 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of animer vs animes

Shared letters: aeimn. Private to "animer": r. Private to "animes": s.

"animer" · 6 letters · shape VCVCVC  ·  "animes" · 6 letters · shape VCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • animer ← ainmer · aniemr · animerr · animmer · animre · anmier · annimer · naimer
  • animes ← ainmes · aniems · animess · animmes · animse · anmies · annimes · naimes

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "animer" for "animes" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "animer" is a verb and "animes" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "animer" or "animes"?
"animer" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #12,714 in our French list, against #38,136 for "animes". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "animer" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "animes" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #159,449 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "animer" and "animes" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ainés vs animes". 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 #159,449 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