Which to use
“difficile” and “difficiles” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #553
- “difficile” frequency rank
- #3,133
- “difficiles” frequency rank
- 3686
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | difficile | difficiles |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Non facile, qui nécessite un grand effort. | Pluriel de difficile. |
Same sound, different letters: difficile vs difficiles
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 9 letters.
Same sound, different spelling - difficile / difficiles
This is the hard kind. difficile and difficiles are pronounced identically (\di.fi.sil\) 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) - “difficile” sits inside “difficiles”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 3686, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
difficile is recorded at frequency rank #553, classified as anadj, pronounced \di.fi.sil\. difficiles is at rank #3,133, tagged as anadj, pronounced \di.fi.sil\.
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 3686, this pair ranks #433,418 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of difficile vs difficiles
Shared letters: cdefil. Private to "difficile": -. Private to "difficiles": s.
"difficile" · 9 letters · shape CVCCVCVCV · "difficiles" · 10 letters · shape CVCCVCVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- difficile ← ddifficile · dfificile · diffciile · difficcile · difficiel · difficille · difficlie · diffiicle
- difficiles ← ddifficiles · dfificiles · diffciiles · difficciles · difficiels · difficiless · difficilles · difficilse
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "difficile" and "difficiles" be used interchangeably?
Which is more common, "difficile" or "difficiles"?
After this comparison
Sound matches; spelling doesn't. Use the exits below to lock the right form or check a cousin pair.
- Full dictionary entry for "difficile" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "difficiles" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #433,418 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "difficile" and "difficiles" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "difficiles vs difficultés". 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 #433,418 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.