croyantvscroyantsWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#7,294
“croyant” frequency rank
#10,852
“croyants” frequency rank
18146
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature croyant croyants
Definition Qui croit ce que sa religion enseigne. Masculin pluriel de croyant.

Same sound, different letters: croyant vs croyants

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 7 letters. croyant runs 7 letters (CCVVVCC) against croyants's 8 (CCVVVCCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

7 ch
croyant
8 ch
croyants

Ear matches; page differs - croyant and croyants

This is the hard kind. croyant and croyants are pronounced identically (\kʁwa.jɑ̃\) 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) - “croyant” sits inside “croyants”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 18146, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

croyant is recorded at frequency rank #7,294, classified as anadj, pronounced \kʁwa.jɑ̃\. croyants is at rank #10,852, tagged as anadj, pronounced \kʁwa.jɑ̃\.

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 18146, this pair ranks #379,768 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of croyant vs croyants

Shared letters: acnorty. Private to "croyant": -. Private to "croyants": s.

"croyant" · 7 letters · shape CCVVVCC  ·  "croyants" · 8 letters · shape CCVVVCCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • croyant ← ccroyant · coryant · croaynt · croyannt · croyantt · croyatn · croynat · croyyant
  • croyants ← ccroyants · coryants · croaynts · croyannts · croyanst · croyantss · croyantts · croyatns

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "croyant" and "croyants" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are pronounced the same (\kʁwa.jɑ̃\), 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 "croyant" or "croyants" show up more?
"croyant" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #7,294 in our French list, against #10,852 for "croyants". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

"croyant" and "croyants" share a sound, keep the gloss open, then jump to the headword or a nearby trap.

  • Full dictionary entry for "croyant" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "croyants" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #379,768 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "croyant" and "croyants" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "croyante vs croyants". 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 #379,768 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