Which to use
“cycle” and “cycles” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #2,917
- “cycle” frequency rank
- #9,302
- “cycles” frequency rank
- 12219
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | cycle | cycles |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Révolution astronomique. | Pluriel de cycle. |
Same sound, different letters: cycle vs cycles
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 5 letters.
Same sound, different spelling - cycle / cycles
This is the hard kind. cycle and cycles are pronounced identically (\sikl\) 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) - “cycle” sits inside “cycles”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 12219, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
cycle is recorded at frequency rank #2,917, classified as anoun, pronounced \sikl\. cycles is at rank #9,302, tagged as anoun, pronounced \sikl\.
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 12219, this pair ranks #406,120 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of cycle vs cycles
Shared letters: cely. Private to "cycle": -. Private to "cycles": s.
"cycle" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV · "cycles" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "cycle" and "cycles" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "cycle" or "cycles" show up more?
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 "cycle" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "cycles" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #406,120 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "cycle" and "cycles" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "CCE vs cycle". 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 #406,120 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.