empruntvsempruntsTell them apart

Which to use

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

#7,311
“emprunt” frequency rank
#10,696
“emprunts” frequency rank
18007
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature emprunt emprunts
Definition Action ou chose qu'on emprunte. Pluriel de emprunt.

Same sound, different letters: emprunt vs emprunts

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

7 ch
emprunt
8 ch
emprunts

Same sound, different spelling - emprunt / emprunts

This is the hard kind. emprunt and emprunts are pronounced identically (\ɑ̃.pʁœ̃\) 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) - “emprunt” sits inside “emprunts”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 18007, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

emprunt is recorded at frequency rank #7,311, classified as anoun, pronounced \ɑ̃.pʁœ̃\. emprunts is at rank #10,696, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ɑ̃.pʁœ̃\.

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 18007, this pair ranks #380,429 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of emprunt vs emprunts

Shared letters: emnprtu. Private to "emprunt": -. Private to "emprunts": s.

"emprunt" · 7 letters · shape VCCCVCC  ·  "emprunts" · 8 letters · shape VCCCVCCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • emprunt ← emmprunt · empprunt · emprnut · emprrunt · emprunnt · empruntt · emprutn · empurnt
  • emprunts ← emmprunts · empprunts · emprnuts · emprrunts · emprunnts · emprunst · empruntss · empruntts

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "emprunt" and "emprunts" be used interchangeably?
No. They are pronounced the same (\ɑ̃.pʁœ̃\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
In ordinary French text, does "emprunt" or "emprunts" show up more?
"emprunt" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #7,311 in our French list, against #10,696 for "emprunts". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "emprunt" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "emprunts" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #380,429 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "emprunt" and "emprunts" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "empreints vs emprunts". 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 #380,429 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