Which to use
“buffle” and “buffles” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #32,717
- “buffle” frequency rank
- #48,955
- “buffles” frequency rank
- 81672
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | buffle | buffles |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Nom donné à plusieurs espèces de bovidés sauvages ou domestiques des genres Bubalus et Syncerus. | Pluriel de buffle. |
Same sound, different letters: buffle vs buffles
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 6 letters.
Same sound, different spelling - buffle / buffles
This is the hard kind. buffle and buffles are pronounced identically (\byfl\) 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) - “buffle” sits inside “buffles”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 81672, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
buffle is recorded at frequency rank #32,717, classified as anoun, pronounced \byfl\. buffles is at rank #48,955, tagged as anoun, pronounced \byfl\.
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 81672, this pair ranks #18,269 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of buffle vs buffles
Shared letters: beflu. Private to "buffle": -. Private to "buffles": s.
"buffle" · 6 letters · shape CVCCCV · "buffles" · 7 letters · shape CVCCCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "buffle" and "buffles" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "buffle" or "buffles" show up more?
What to do next
"buffle" and "buffles" share a sound, keep the gloss open, then jump to the headword or a nearby trap.
- Full dictionary entry for "buffle" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "buffles" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #18,269 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "buffle" and "buffles" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "bouffées vs buffles". 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 #18,269 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.