diarrhéevsdiarrhéesTell them apart

Which to use

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

#16,854
“diarrhée” frequency rank
#36,352
“diarrhées” frequency rank
53206
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature diarrhée diarrhées
Definition Maladie caractérisée par des évacuations de selles, liquides et fréquentes, et qui est ordinairement due à l’inflammation de l’intestin. Pluriel de diarrhée.

Same sound, different letters: diarrhée vs diarrhées

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 8 letters. diarrhée runs 8 letters (CVVCCCVV) against diarrhées's 9 (CVVCCCVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

8 ch
diarrhée
9 ch
diarrhées

Ear matches; page differs - diarrhée and diarrhées

This is the hard kind. diarrhée and diarrhées are pronounced identically (\dja.ʁe\) 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) - “diarrhée” sits inside “diarrhées”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 53206, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

diarrhée is recorded at frequency rank #16,854, classified as anoun, pronounced \dja.ʁe\. diarrhées is at rank #36,352, tagged as anoun, pronounced \dja.ʁe\.

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 53206, this pair ranks #142,367 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of diarrhée vs diarrhées

Shared letters: adehiré. Private to "diarrhée": -. Private to "diarrhées": s.

"diarrhée" · 8 letters · shape CVVCCCVV  ·  "diarrhées" · 9 letters · shape CVVCCCVVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "diarrhée" and "diarrhées" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are pronounced the same (\dja.ʁe\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
Frequency check: "diarrhée" vs "diarrhées" - which ranks higher?
"diarrhée" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #16,854 in our French list, against #36,352 for "diarrhées". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Sound matches; spelling doesn't. Use the exits below to lock the right form or check a cousin pair.

  • Full dictionary entry for "diarrhée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "diarrhées" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #142,367 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics

Confusion rank #142,367 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