Which to use
“communauté” is a noun and “communaux” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #802
- “communauté” frequency rank
- #20,395
- “communaux” frequency rank
- 21197
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | communauté | communaux |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | État de ce qui est commun. | Masculin pluriel de communal. |
Where the eye mixes communauté and communaux
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 8 letters in sequence. communauté runs 10 letters (CVCCVCVVCV) against communaux's 9 (CVCCVCVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Why the eye confuses communauté with communaux
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: communauté is \kɔ.my.no.te\ while communaux is \kɔ.my.no\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 21197, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
communauté is recorded at frequency rank #802, classified as anoun, pronounced \kɔ.my.no.te\. communaux is at rank #20,395, tagged as anadj, pronounced \kɔ.my.no\.
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 21197, this pair ranks #364,398 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of communauté vs communaux
Shared letters: acmnou. Private to "communauté": té. Private to "communaux": x.
"communauté" · 10 letters · shape CVCCVCVVCV · "communaux" · 9 letters · shape CVCCVCVVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- communaux ← ccommunaux · cmomunaux · commnuaux · commuanux · communauxx · communaxu · communnaux · communuax
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "communauté" for "communaux" ever safe?
In ordinary French text, does "communauté" or "communaux" show up more?
What to do next
Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.
- Full dictionary entry for "communauté" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "communaux" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #364,398 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "communauté" and "communaux" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "communauté vs cosmonaute". 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 #364,398 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.