brutevsbrutsConfusable pair

Quick tell: brute is a noun, bruts is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“brute” is a noun and “bruts” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#7,937
“brute” frequency rank
#17,639
“bruts” frequency rank
25576
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature brute bruts
Definition Animal considéré comme étant privé de raison. Masculin pluriel de brut.

Same sound, different letters: brute vs bruts

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 4 letters.

5 ch
brute
5 ch
bruts

Homophone desk: brute vs bruts

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: brute and bruts carry the same recorded pronunciation, \bʁyt\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is anoun, the other anadjective, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They differ by a single letter - e in “brute” becomes s in “bruts”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 25576, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

brute is recorded at frequency rank #7,937, classified as anoun, pronounced \bʁyt\. bruts is at rank #17,639, tagged as anadj, pronounced \bʁyt\.

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 25576, this pair ranks #340,061 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of brute vs bruts

Shared letters: brtu. Private to "brute": e. Private to "bruts": s.

"brute" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV  ·  "bruts" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • brutebbrute · brrute · brtue · bruet · brutte · burte · rbute
  • brutsbbruts · brruts · brtus · brust · brutss · brutts · burts · rbuts

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "brute" and "bruts" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "brute" is a noun and "bruts" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "brute" or "bruts"?
"brute" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #7,937 in our French list, against #17,639 for "bruts". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "brute" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "bruts" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #340,061 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "brute" and "bruts" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "bruts vs Butt". 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 #340,061 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