Which to use
“confuse” and “confuses” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #19,484
- “confuse” frequency rank
- #40,193
- “confuses” frequency rank
- 59677
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | confuse | confuses |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Féminin singulier de confus. | Féminin pluriel de confus. |
Same sound, different letters: confuse vs confuses
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 7 letters. confuse runs 7 letters (CVCCVCV) against confuses's 8 (CVCCVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Same sound, different spelling - confuse / confuses
This is the hard kind. confuse and confuses are pronounced identically (\kɔ̃.fyz\) 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) - “confuse” sits inside “confuses”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 59677, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
confuse is recorded at frequency rank #19,484, classified as anadj, pronounced \kɔ̃.fyz\. confuses is at rank #40,193, tagged as anadj, pronounced \kɔ̃.fyz\.
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 59677, this pair ranks #101,784 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of confuse vs confuses
Shared letters: cefnosu. Private to "confuse": -. Private to "confuses": -.
"confuse" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCV · "confuses" · 8 letters · shape CVCCVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "confuse" and "confuses" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Frequency check: "confuse" vs "confuses" - which ranks higher?
What to do next
You've separated the homophone pair "confuse" / "confuses". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.
- Full dictionary entry for "confuse" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "confuses" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #101,784 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "confuse" and "confuses" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "conférés vs confuses". 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 #101,784 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.