Which to use
“cercle” and “cercles” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #2,463
- “cercle” frequency rank
- #8,512
- “cercles” frequency rank
- 10975
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | cercle | cercles |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Dans un plan euclidien, lieu de tous les points équidistants d’un point donné appelé le centre du cercle. La distance au centre s’appelle le rayon. | Pluriel de cercle. |
Same sound, different letters: cercle vs cercles
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 6 letters. cercle runs 6 letters (CVCCCV) against cercles's 7 (CVCCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Same sound, different spelling - cercle / cercles
This is the hard kind. cercle and cercles are pronounced identically (\sɛʁkl\) 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) - “cercle” sits inside “cercles”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 10975, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
cercle is recorded at frequency rank #2,463, classified as anoun, pronounced \sɛʁkl\. cercles is at rank #8,512, tagged as anoun, pronounced \sɛʁkl\.
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 10975, this pair ranks #410,945 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of cercle vs cercles
Shared letters: celr. Private to "cercle": -. Private to "cercles": s.
"cercle" · 6 letters · shape CVCCCV · "cercles" · 7 letters · shape CVCCCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "cercle" for "cercles" ever safe?
Frequency check: "cercle" vs "cercles" - which ranks higher?
What to do next
You've separated the homophone pair "cercle" / "cercles". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.
- Full dictionary entry for "cercle" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "cercles" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #410,945 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "cercle" and "cercles" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "cercle vs Circé". 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 #410,945 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.