arrivéevsarrivéesWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: arrivée is a noun, arrivées is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#840
“arrivée” frequency rank
#9,431
“arrivées” frequency rank
10271
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature arrivée arrivées
Definition Action d’arriver. Féminin pluriel de arrivé.

Same sound, different letters: arrivée vs arrivées

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 7 letters. arrivée runs 7 letters (VCCVCVV) against arrivées's 8 (VCCVCVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

7 ch
arrivée
8 ch
arrivées

Same sound, different spelling - arrivée / arrivées

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: arrivée and arrivées carry the same recorded pronunciation, \a.ʁi.ve\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is anoun, the other anadjective, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “arrivée” sits inside “arrivées”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 10271, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

arrivée is recorded at frequency rank #840, classified as anoun, pronounced \a.ʁi.ve\. arrivées is at rank #9,431, tagged as anadj, pronounced \a.ʁi.ve\.

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 10271, this pair ranks #413,615 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of arrivée vs arrivées

Shared letters: aeirvé. Private to "arrivée": -. Private to "arrivées": s.

"arrivée" · 7 letters · shape VCCVCVV  ·  "arrivées" · 8 letters · shape VCCVCVVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "arrivée" and "arrivées" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "arrivée" is a noun and "arrivées" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "arrivée" vs "arrivées" - which ranks higher?
"arrivée" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #840 in our French list, against #9,431 for "arrivées". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Sound matches; spelling doesn't. Use the exits below to lock the right form or check a cousin pair.

  • Full dictionary entry for "arrivée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "arrivées" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #413,615 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "arrivée" and "arrivées" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "arrivées vs arrosées". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #413,615 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