appelsvsappsWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#3,122
“appels” frequency rank
#19,740
“apps” frequency rank
22862
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature appels apps
Definition Pluriel de appel. Pluriel de app.

Where the eye mixes appels and apps

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

6 ch
appels
4 ch
apps

Look-alike desk: appels vs apps

A purely visual mix-up. appels (\a.pɛl\) and apps (\ˈæps\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 22862, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

appels is recorded at frequency rank #3,122, classified as anoun, pronounced \a.pɛl\. apps is at rank #19,740, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ˈæps\.

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 22862, this pair ranks #355,730 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of appels vs apps

Shared letters: aps. Private to "appels": el. Private to "apps": -.

"appels" · 6 letters · shape VCCVCC  ·  "apps" · 4 letters · shape VCCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • appelsapels · apepls · appells · appelss · appesl · apples · papels
  • appsappss · apsp · paps

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "appels" for "apps" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\a.pɛl\ versus \ˈæps\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "appels" or "apps" show up more?
"appels" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,122 in our French list, against #19,740 for "apps". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "appels" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "apps" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #355,730 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "appels" and "apps" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "apps vs aves". 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 #355,730 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