Which to use
“enceinte” and “enceintes” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #2,317
- “enceinte” frequency rank
- #9,993
- “enceintes” frequency rank
- 12310
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | enceinte | enceintes |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Féminin singulier de enceint. — Note d’usage : quasiment toujours en parlant d’une femme et non d’un animal femelle. | Féminin pluriel de enceint. |
Same sound, different letters: enceinte vs enceintes
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 8 letters. enceinte runs 8 letters (VCCVVCCV) against enceintes's 9 (VCCVVCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Same sound, different spelling - enceinte / enceintes
This is the hard kind. enceinte and enceintes are pronounced identically (\ɑ̃.sɛ̃t\) 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) - “enceinte” sits inside “enceintes”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 12310, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
enceinte is recorded at frequency rank #2,317, classified as anadj, pronounced \ɑ̃.sɛ̃t\. enceintes is at rank #9,993, tagged as anadj, pronounced \ɑ̃.sɛ̃t\.
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 12310, this pair ranks #405,786 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of enceinte vs enceintes
Shared letters: ceint. Private to "enceinte": -. Private to "enceintes": s.
"enceinte" · 8 letters · shape VCCVVCCV · "enceintes" · 9 letters · shape VCCVVCCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "enceinte" and "enceintes" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "enceinte" or "enceintes" show up more?
Useful next steps
You've separated the homophone pair "enceinte" / "enceintes". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.
- Full dictionary entry for "enceinte" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "enceintes" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #405,786 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "enceinte" and "enceintes" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "enceintes vs éteintes". 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 #405,786 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.