aucunvsaucunsConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#299
“aucun” frequency rank
#12,311
“aucuns” frequency rank
12610
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature aucun aucuns
Definition Nul ; pas un (associé à une négation : ne, sans …). Masculin pluriel de aucun.

Same sound, different letters: aucun vs aucuns

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 5 letters. aucun runs 5 letters (VVCVC) against aucuns's 6 (VVCVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
aucun
6 ch
aucuns

Ear matches; page differs - aucun and aucuns

This is the hard kind. aucun and aucuns are pronounced identically (\o.kœ̃\) and both work as anadjective. 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) - “aucun” sits inside “aucuns”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 12610, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

aucun is recorded at frequency rank #299, classified as anadj, pronounced \o.kœ̃\. aucuns is at rank #12,311, tagged as anadj, pronounced \o.kœ̃\.

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 12610, this pair ranks #404,531 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of aucun vs aucuns

Shared letters: acnu. Private to "aucun": -. Private to "aucuns": s.

"aucun" · 5 letters · shape VVCVC  ·  "aucuns" · 6 letters · shape VVCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • aucun ← acuun · auccun · aucnu · aucunn · auucn · uacun
  • aucuns ← acuuns · auccuns · aucnus · aucunns · aucunss · aucusn · auucns · uacuns

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "aucun" for "aucuns" ever safe?
No. They are pronounced the same (\o.kœ̃\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
In ordinary French text, does "aucun" or "aucuns" show up more?
"aucun" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #299 in our French list, against #12,311 for "aucuns". 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 "aucun" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "aucuns" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #404,531 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "aucun" and "aucuns" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "aucuns vs Autun". 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 #404,531 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