Which to use
“bavard” and “bavards” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #24,121
- “bavard” frequency rank
- #44,327
- “bavards” frequency rank
- 68448
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | bavard | bavards |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Qui a l’habitude de bavarder. | Masculin pluriel de bavard. |
Same sound, different letters: bavard vs bavards
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 6 letters. bavard runs 6 letters (CVCVCC) against bavards's 7 (CVCVCCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Ear matches; page differs - bavard and bavards
This is the hard kind. bavard and bavards are pronounced identically (\ba.vaʁ\) 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) - “bavard” sits inside “bavards”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 68448, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
bavard is recorded at frequency rank #24,121, classified as anadj, pronounced \ba.vaʁ\. bavards is at rank #44,327, tagged as anadj, pronounced \ba.vaʁ\.
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 68448, this pair ranks #59,156 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of bavard vs bavards
Shared letters: abdrv. Private to "bavard": -. Private to "bavards": s.
"bavard" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCC · "bavards" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "bavard" for "bavards" ever safe?
Frequency check: "bavard" vs "bavards" - which ranks higher?
What to do next
You've separated the homophone pair "bavard" / "bavards". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.
- Full dictionary entry for "bavard" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "bavards" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #59,156 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "bavard" and "bavards" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "bâtarde vs bavards". 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 #59,156 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.