appelsvsappuisWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#3,122
“appels” frequency rank
#14,198
“appuis” frequency rank
17320
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature appels appuis
Definition Pluriel de appel. Pluriel de appui.

Where the eye mixes appels and appuis

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. appels (VCCVCC) and appuis (VCCVVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

6 ch
appels
6 ch
appuis

Look-alike desk: appels vs appuis

A purely visual mix-up. appels (\a.pɛl\) and appuis (\a.pɥi\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 17320, 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\. appuis is at rank #14,198, tagged as anoun, pronounced \a.pɥi\.

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 17320, this pair ranks #383,760 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of appels vs appuis

Shared letters: aps. Private to "appels": el. Private to "appuis": iu.

"appels" · 6 letters · shape VCCVCC  ·  "appuis" · 6 letters · shape VCCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • appels ← apels · apepls · appells · appelss · appesl · apples · papels
  • appuis ← appius · appuiss · appusi · apuis · apupis · papuis

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "appels" and "appuis" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\a.pɛl\ versus \a.pɥi\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "appels" or "appuis"?
"appels" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,122 in our French list, against #14,198 for "appuis". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "appels" and "appuis" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "appels" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "appuis" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #383,760 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "appels" and "appuis" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "appuis vs appuya". 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 #383,760 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