autoritaire vs autoritaires

Which to use

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

#11,714
“autoritaire” frequency rank: #26,629
“autoritaires” frequency rank: 38343
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	autoritaire	autoritaires
Definition	Associé à une personne qui use ou montre de l’autorité.	Pluriel de autoritaire.

Same sound, different letters: autoritaire vs autoritaires

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 11 letters. autoritaire runs 11 letters (VVCVCVCVVCV) against autoritaires's 12 (VVCVCVCVVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

11 ch

autoritaire

12 ch

autoritaires

Homophone desk: autoritaire vs autoritaires

This is the hard kind. autoritaire and autoritaires are pronounced identically (\o.tɔ.ʁi.tɛʁ\) 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) - “autoritaire” sits inside “autoritaires”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 38343, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

autoritaire is recorded at frequency rank #11,714, classified as anadj, pronounced \o.tɔ.ʁi.tɛʁ\. autoritaires is at rank #26,629, tagged as anadj, pronounced \o.tɔ.ʁi.tɛʁ\.

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 38343, this pair ranks #255,897 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of autoritaire vs autoritaires

Shared letters: aeiortu. Private to "autoritaire": -. Private to "autoritaires": s.

"autoritaire" · 11 letters · shape VVCVCVCVVCV · "autoritaires" · 12 letters · shape VVCVCVCVVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

autoritaire ← atuoritaire · auotritaire · autoirtaire · autoriatire · autoritaier · autoritairre · autoritarie · autoritiare
autoritaires ← atuoritaires · auotritaires · autoirtaires · autoriatires · autoritaiers · autoritairess · autoritairres · autoritairse

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "autoritaire" for "autoritaires" ever safe?

No. They are pronounced the same (\o.tɔ.ʁi.tɛʁ\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.

Which is more common, "autoritaire" or "autoritaires"?

"autoritaire" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #11,714 in our French list, against #26,629 for "autoritaires". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

Full dictionary entry for "autoritaire" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "autoritaires" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #255,897 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
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 #255,897 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.