Which to use
“ellipse” and “ellipses” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #29,757
- “ellipse” frequency rank
- #41,763
- “ellipses” frequency rank
- 71520
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | ellipse | ellipses |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Suppression d’un élément de phrase sans changement de signification. | Pluriel de ellipse. |
Same sound, different letters: ellipse vs ellipses
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 7 letters. ellipse runs 7 letters (VCCVCCV) against ellipses's 8 (VCCVCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Ear matches; page differs - ellipse and ellipses
This is the hard kind. ellipse and ellipses are pronounced identically (\e.lips\) 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) - “ellipse” sits inside “ellipses”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 71520, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
ellipse is recorded at frequency rank #29,757, classified as anoun, pronounced \e.lips\. 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 71520, this pair ranks #47,283 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of ellipse vs ellipses
Shared letters: eilps. Private to "ellipse": -. Private to "ellipses": -.
"ellipse" · 7 letters · shape VCCVCCV · "ellipses" · 8 letters · shape VCCVCCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "ellipse" and "ellipses" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Which is more common, "ellipse" or "ellipses"?
Useful next steps
"ellipse" and "ellipses" share a sound, keep the gloss open, then jump to the headword or a nearby trap.
- Full dictionary entry for "ellipse" 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 #47,283 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "ellipse" 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 #47,283 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.