Which to use
“écluse” and “écluses” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #29,608
- “écluse” frequency rank
- #30,438
- “écluses” frequency rank
- 60046
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | écluse | écluses |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Clôture en forme de bassin, faite de terre, de pierre, de bois ou de toute autre matière dans un port, sur une rivière, sur un canal, etc., ayant une ou plusieurs portes qui se lèvent et se baissent ou qui s’ouvrent et se ferment, pour retenir et pour laisser passer l’eau. | Pluriel de écluse. |
Same sound, different letters: écluse vs écluses
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 6 letters. écluse runs 6 letters (VCCVCV) against écluses's 7 (VCCVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Ear matches; page differs - écluse and écluses
This is the hard kind. écluse and écluses are pronounced identically (\e.klyz\) 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) - “écluse” sits inside “écluses”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 60046, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
écluse is recorded at frequency rank #29,608, classified as anoun, pronounced \e.klyz\. écluses is at rank #30,438, tagged as anoun, pronounced \e.klyz\.
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 60046, this pair ranks #99,758 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of écluse vs écluses
Shared letters: celsué. Private to "écluse": -. Private to "écluses": -.
"écluse" · 6 letters · shape VCCVCV · "écluses" · 7 letters · shape VCCVCVC
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "écluse" and "écluses" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Frequency check: "écluse" vs "écluses" - which ranks higher?
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 "écluse" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "écluses" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #99,758 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "écluse" and "écluses" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "écœuré vs écluse". Nearby pair
Confusion rank #99,758 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.