cigarevscigaresWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#21,567
“cigare” frequency rank
#24,904
“cigares” frequency rank
46471
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cigare cigares
Definition Petit rouleau de feuilles de tabac préparé pour être fumé. Pluriel de cigare.

Same sound, different letters: cigare vs cigares

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 6 letters. cigare runs 6 letters (CVCVCV) against cigares's 7 (CVCVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
cigare
7 ch
cigares

Ear matches; page differs - cigare and cigares

This is the hard kind. cigare and cigares are pronounced identically (\si.ɡaʁ\) 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) - “cigare” sits inside “cigares”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 46471, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cigare is recorded at frequency rank #21,567, classified as anoun, pronounced \si.ɡaʁ\. cigares is at rank #24,904, tagged as anoun, pronounced \si.ɡaʁ\.

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 46471, this pair ranks #194,667 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of cigare vs cigares

Shared letters: acegir. Private to "cigare": -. Private to "cigares": s.

"cigare" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV  ·  "cigares" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • cigare ← ccigare · cgiare · ciagre · cigaer · cigarre · ciggare · cigrae · icgare
  • cigares ← ccigares · cgiares · ciagres · cigaers · cigaress · cigarres · cigarse · ciggares

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "cigare" and "cigares" be used interchangeably?
No. They are pronounced the same (\si.ɡaʁ\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
In ordinary French text, does "cigare" or "cigares" show up more?
"cigare" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #21,567 in our French list, against #24,904 for "cigares". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Sound matches; spelling doesn't. Use the exits below to lock the right form or check a cousin pair.

  • Full dictionary entry for "cigare" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "cigares" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #194,667 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cigare" and "cigares" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "cigales vs cigares". 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 #194,667 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