Which to use
“circulaire” and “circulaires” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #5,958
- “circulaire” frequency rank
- #17,651
- “circulaires” frequency rank
- 23609
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | circulaire | circulaires |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Relatif au cercle. | Pluriel de circulaire. |
Same sound, different letters: circulaire vs circulaires
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 10 letters. circulaire runs 10 letters (CVCCVCVVCV) against circulaires's 11 (CVCCVCVVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Ear matches; page differs - circulaire and circulaires
This is the hard kind. circulaire and circulaires are pronounced identically (\siʁ.ky.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) - “circulaire” sits inside “circulaires”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 23609, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
circulaire is recorded at frequency rank #5,958, classified as anadj, pronounced \siʁ.ky.lɛʁ\. circulaires is at rank #17,651, tagged as anadj, pronounced \siʁ.ky.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 23609, this pair ranks #351,456 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of circulaire vs circulaires
Shared letters: aceilru. Private to "circulaire": -. Private to "circulaires": s.
"circulaire" · 10 letters · shape CVCCVCVVCV · "circulaires" · 11 letters · shape CVCCVCVVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- circulaire ← ccirculaire · cicrulaire · circculaire · circluaire · circualire · circulaier · circulairre · circularie
- circulaires ← ccirculaires · cicrulaires · circculaires · circluaires · circualires · circulaiers · circulairess · circulairres
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "circulaire" and "circulaires" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "circulaire" or "circulaires" show up more?
What to do next
You've separated the homophone pair "circulaire" / "circulaires". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.
- Full dictionary entry for "circulaire" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "circulaires" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #351,456 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "circulaire" and "circulaires" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "circulaire vs circulait". 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 #351,456 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.