économevséconomesTell them apart

Which to use

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

#24,820
“économe” frequency rank
#43,223
“économes” frequency rank
68043
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature économe économes
Definition Qualifie une personne qui évite de dépenser de l’argent inutilement. Pluriel de l’adjectif économe.

Same sound, different letters: économe vs économes

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 7 letters. économe runs 7 letters (VCVCVCV) against économes's 8 (VCVCVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

7 ch
économe
8 ch
économes

Same sound, different spelling - économe / économes

This is the hard kind. économe and économes are pronounced identically (\e.kɔ.nɔm\) 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) - “économe” sits inside “économes”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 68043, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

économe is recorded at frequency rank #24,820, classified as anadj, pronounced \e.kɔ.nɔm\. économes is at rank #43,223, tagged as anadj, pronounced \e.kɔ.nɔm\.

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 68043, this pair ranks #60,845 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of économe vs économes

Shared letters: cemnoé. Private to "économe": -. Private to "économes": s.

"économe" · 7 letters · shape VCVCVCV  ·  "économes" · 8 letters · shape VCVCVCVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "économe" and "économes" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are pronounced the same (\e.kɔ.nɔm\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
Frequency check: "économe" vs "économes" - which ranks higher?
"économe" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #24,820 in our French list, against #43,223 for "économes". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

"économe" and "économes" share a sound, keep the gloss open, then jump to the headword or a nearby trap.

  • Full dictionary entry for "économe" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "économes" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #60,845 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "économe" and "économes" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "économes vs economy". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #60,845 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