églisesvsellipsesConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#4,114
“églises” frequency rank
#41,763
“ellipses” frequency rank
45877
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature églises ellipses
Definition Pluriel de église. Pluriel de ellipse.

Where the eye mixes églises and ellipses

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. églises runs 7 letters (VCCVCVC) against ellipses's 8 (VCCVCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

7 ch
églises
8 ch
ellipses

Look-alike desk: églises vs ellipses

A purely visual mix-up. églises (\e.ɡliz\) and ellipses (\e.lips\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 45877, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

églises is recorded at frequency rank #4,114, classified as anoun, pronounced \e.ɡliz\. ellipses is at rank #41,763, tagged as anoun, pronounced \e.lips\.

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 45877, this pair ranks #199,347 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of églises vs ellipses

Shared letters: eils. Private to "églises": gé. Private to "ellipses": p.

"églises" · 7 letters · shape VCCVCVC  ·  "ellipses" · 8 letters · shape VCCVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • ellipses ← elilpses · elipses · ellipess · ellippses · ellipsess · ellipsses · ellispes · ellpises

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "églises" for "ellipses" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\e.ɡliz\ versus \e.lips\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "églises" vs "ellipses" - which ranks higher?
"églises" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #4,114 in our French list, against #41,763 for "ellipses". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "églises" and "ellipses" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "églises" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "ellipses" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #199,347 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "églises" and "ellipses" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "éclipses vs ellipses". 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 #199,347 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