Which to use
“appliquer” is a verb and “appliques” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #2,702
- “appliquer” frequency rank
- #37,173
- “appliques” frequency rank
- 39875
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | appliquer | appliques |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Mettre une chose sur une autre, soit pour qu’elle y demeure adhérente, soit pour qu’elle y laisse une empreinte, soit simplement pour qu’elle y touche. | Pluriel de applique. |
Where the eye mixes appliquer and appliques
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 8 letters in sequence. appliquer and appliques follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (VCCCVCVVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Look-alike desk: appliquer vs appliques
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: appliquer is \a.pli.ke\ while appliques is \a.plik\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by a single letter - r in “appliquer” becomes s in “appliques”, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 39875, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
appliquer is recorded at frequency rank #2,702, classified as averb, pronounced \a.pli.ke\. appliques is at rank #37,173, tagged as anoun, pronounced \a.plik\.
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 39875, this pair ranks #244,690 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of appliquer vs appliques
Shared letters: aeilpqu. Private to "appliquer": r. Private to "appliques": s.
"appliquer" · 9 letters · shape VCCCVCVVC · "appliques" · 9 letters · shape VCCCVCVVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "appliquer" for "appliques" ever safe?
Which is more common, "appliquer" or "appliques"?
Useful next steps
Eye-level mix-up between "appliquer" and "appliques" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "appliquer" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "appliques" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #244,690 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "appliquer" and "appliques" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "appliques vs appliquons". 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 #244,690 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.