atrocitévsatrocitésWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#42,749
“atrocité” frequency rank
#18,121
“atrocités” frequency rank
60870
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature atrocité atrocités
Definition Extrême cruauté. Pluriel de atrocité.

Same sound, different letters: atrocité vs atrocités

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 8 letters. atrocité runs 8 letters (VCCVCVCV) against atrocités's 9 (VCCVCVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

8 ch
atrocité
9 ch
atrocités

Same sound, different spelling - atrocité / atrocités

This is the hard kind. atrocité and atrocités are pronounced identically (\a.tʁɔ.si.te\) and both work as anoun. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “atrocité” sits inside “atrocités”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 60870, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

atrocité is recorded at frequency rank #42,749, classified as anoun, pronounced \a.tʁɔ.si.te\. atrocités is at rank #18,121, tagged as anoun, pronounced \a.tʁɔ.si.te\.

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 60870, this pair ranks #95,354 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of atrocité vs atrocités

Shared letters: aciorté. Private to "atrocité": -. Private to "atrocités": s.

"atrocité" · 8 letters · shape VCCVCVCV  ·  "atrocités" · 9 letters · shape VCCVCVCVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "atrocité" and "atrocités" be used interchangeably?
No. They are pronounced the same (\a.tʁɔ.si.te\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
Frequency check: "atrocité" vs "atrocités" - which ranks higher?
"atrocités" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #18,121 in our French list, against #42,749 for "atrocité". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

"atrocité" and "atrocités" share a sound, keep the gloss open, then jump to the headword or a nearby trap.

  • Full dictionary entry for "atrocité" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "atrocités" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #95,354 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "atrocité" and "atrocités" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "atroce vs atrocité". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #95,354 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