arméesvsarrêtsWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: armées is a adjective, arrêts is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“armées” is an adjective and “arrêts” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#2,980
“armées” frequency rank
#5,631
“arrêts” frequency rank
8611
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature armées arrêts
Definition Féminin pluriel de armé. Défense qui est faite à un officier de sortir de chez lui, ou de s’éloigner d’un lieu déterminé.

Where the spellings diverge

Shared letters are muted; the letters that actually set armées and arrêts apart are highlighted. They share 3 letters in sequence, which is exactly why the eye skips the difference.

6 ch
armées
6 ch
arrêts

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: armées is \aʁ.me\ while arrêts is \a.ʁɛ\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 8611, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

armées is recorded at frequency rank #2,980, classified as anadj, pronounced \aʁ.me\. arrêts is at rank #5,631, tagged as anoun, pronounced \a.ʁɛ\.

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 8611, this pair ranks #419,453 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of armées vs arrêts

Shared letters: ars. Private to "armées": emé. Private to "arrêts": .

"armées" · 6 letters · shape VCCVVC  ·  "arrêts" · 6 letters · shape VCCVCC

Frequency comparison

armées#2,980
arrêts#5,631

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "armées" and "arrêts" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "armées" is an adjective and "arrêts" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "armées" or "arrêts"?
"armées" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,980 in our French list, against #5,631 for "arrêts". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Remembering armées vs arrêts

The fastest way to pick the right one every time.

  • Check the role first: if you need an adjective, it's “armées”; for a noun, it's “arrêts”.
  • See each word in full, definition, IPA, etymology and its other confusables. Full “armées” entry
  • Browse more pairs most likely to be confused. Most confusable

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list