Which to use
“brigand” and “brigands” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #38,176
- “brigand” frequency rank
- #24,500
- “brigands” frequency rank
- 62676
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | brigand | brigands |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Celui qui exerce habituellement le brigandage. | Pluriel de brigand. |
Same sound, different letters: brigand vs brigands
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 7 letters. brigand runs 7 letters (CCVCVCC) against brigands's 8 (CCVCVCCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Ear matches; page differs - brigand and brigands
This is the hard kind. brigand and brigands are pronounced identically (\bʁi.ɡɑ̃\) 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) - “brigand” sits inside “brigands”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 62676, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
brigand is recorded at frequency rank #38,176, classified as anoun, pronounced \bʁi.ɡɑ̃\. brigands is at rank #24,500, tagged as anoun, pronounced \bʁi.ɡɑ̃\.
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 62676, this pair ranks #85,908 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of brigand vs brigands
Shared letters: abdginr. Private to "brigand": -. Private to "brigands": s.
"brigand" · 7 letters · shape CCVCVCC · "brigands" · 8 letters · shape CCVCVCCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "brigand" and "brigands" be used interchangeably?
Frequency check: "brigand" vs "brigands" - which ranks higher?
After this comparison
"brigand" and "brigands" share a sound, keep the gloss open, then jump to the headword or a nearby trap.
- Full dictionary entry for "brigand" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "brigands" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #85,908 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "brigand" and "brigands" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "bigard vs brigand". 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 #85,908 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.