capillairevscapillairesWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#22,194
“capillaire” frequency rank
#26,288
“capillaires” frequency rank
48482
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature capillaire capillaires
Definition Relatif aux cheveux. Pluriel de capillaire.

Same sound, different letters: capillaire vs capillaires

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 10 letters. capillaire runs 10 letters (CVCVCCVVCV) against capillaires's 11 (CVCVCCVVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

10 ch
capillaire
11 ch
capillaires

Same sound, different spelling - capillaire / capillaires

This is the hard kind. capillaire and capillaires are pronounced identically (\ka.pi.lɛʁ\) 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) - “capillaire” sits inside “capillaires”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 48482, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

capillaire is recorded at frequency rank #22,194, classified as anadj, pronounced \ka.pi.lɛʁ\. capillaires is at rank #26,288, tagged as anadj, pronounced \ka.pi.lɛʁ\.

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 48482, this pair ranks #178,546 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of capillaire vs capillaires

Shared letters: aceilpr. Private to "capillaire": -. Private to "capillaires": s.

"capillaire" · 10 letters · shape CVCVCCVVCV  ·  "capillaires" · 11 letters · shape CVCVCCVVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • capillaire ← acpillaire · caipllaire · capilaire · capilalire · capillaier · capillairre · capillarie · capilliare
  • capillaires ← acpillaires · caipllaires · capilaires · capilalires · capillaiers · capillairess · capillairres · capillairse

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "capillaire" and "capillaires" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are pronounced the same (\ka.pi.lɛʁ\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
Frequency check: "capillaire" vs "capillaires" - which ranks higher?
"capillaire" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #22,194 in our French list, against #26,288 for "capillaires". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

You've separated the homophone pair "capillaire" / "capillaires". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.

  • Full dictionary entry for "capillaire" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "capillaires" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #178,546 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "capillaire" and "capillaires" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "capillaire vs capitulaire". 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 #178,546 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