Which to use
“emprunté” is a verb and “emprunts” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #8,998
- “emprunté” frequency rank
- #10,696
- “emprunts” frequency rank
- 19694
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | emprunté | emprunts |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Participe passé de emprunter. | Pluriel de emprunt. |
Where the eye mixes emprunté and emprunts
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 7 letters in sequence. emprunté (VCCCVCCV) and emprunts (VCCCVCCC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.
Visual trap between emprunté and emprunts
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: emprunté is \ɑ̃.pʁœ̃.te\ while emprunts is \ɑ̃.pʁœ̃\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by a single letter - é in “emprunté” becomes s in “emprunts”, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 19694, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
emprunté is recorded at frequency rank #8,998, classified as averb, pronounced \ɑ̃.pʁœ̃.te\. 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 19694, this pair ranks #371,994 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of emprunté vs emprunts
Shared letters: emnprtu. Private to "emprunté": é. Private to "emprunts": s.
"emprunté" · 8 letters · shape VCCCVCCV · "emprunts" · 8 letters · shape VCCCVCCC
Known mistypes of this pair
- emprunts ← emmprunts · empprunts · emprnuts · emprrunts · emprunnts · emprunst · empruntss · empruntts
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "emprunté" and "emprunts" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "emprunté" or "emprunts" show up more?
What to do next
Eye-level mix-up between "emprunté" and "emprunts" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "emprunté" 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 #371,994 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "emprunté" 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 #371,994 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.