Which to use
“drôle” and “drôles” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #1,200
- “drôle” frequency rank
- #8,839
- “drôles” frequency rank
- 10039
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | drôle | drôles |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Comique, marrant, rigolo. | Pluriel de drôle. |
Same sound, different letters: drôle vs drôles
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 5 letters. drôle runs 5 letters (CCVCV) against drôles's 6 (CCVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Homophone desk: drôle vs drôles
This is the hard kind. drôle and drôles are pronounced identically (\dʁol\) 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) - “drôle” sits inside “drôles”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 10039, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
drôle is recorded at frequency rank #1,200, classified as anadj, pronounced \dʁol\. drôles is at rank #8,839, tagged as anadj, pronounced \dʁol\.
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 10039, this pair ranks #414,438 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of drôle vs drôles
Shared letters: delrô. Private to "drôle": -. Private to "drôles": s.
"drôle" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV · "drôles" · 6 letters · shape CCVCVC
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "drôle" and "drôles" be used interchangeably?
Which is more common, "drôle" or "drôles"?
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 "drôle" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "drôles" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #414,438 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "drôle" and "drôles" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "diodes vs drôles". Nearby pair
Confusion rank #414,438 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.