enchaînementvsenchaînementsWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#16,868
“enchaînement” frequency rank
#43,409
“enchaînements” frequency rank
60277
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature enchaînement enchaînements
Definition Variante orthographique de enchainement. Pluriel de enchaînement.

Same sound, different letters: enchaînement vs enchaînements

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 12 letters. enchaînement runs 12 letters (VCCCVVCVCVCC) against enchaînements's 13 (VCCCVVCVCVCCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

12 ch
enchaînement
13 ch
enchaînements

Ear matches; page differs - enchaînement and enchaînements

This is the hard kind. enchaînement and enchaînements are pronounced identically (\ɑ̃.ʃɛn.mɑ̃\) 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) - “enchaînement” sits inside “enchaînements”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 60277, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

enchaînement is recorded at frequency rank #16,868, classified as anoun, pronounced \ɑ̃.ʃɛn.mɑ̃\. enchaînements is at rank #43,409, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ɑ̃.ʃɛn.mɑ̃\.

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 60277, this pair ranks #98,495 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of enchaînement vs enchaînements

Shared letters: acehmntî. Private to "enchaînement": -. Private to "enchaînements": s.

"enchaînement" · 12 letters · shape VCCCVVCVCVCC  ·  "enchaînements" · 13 letters · shape VCCCVVCVCVCCC

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "enchaînement" and "enchaînements" be used interchangeably?
No. They are pronounced the same (\ɑ̃.ʃɛn.mɑ̃\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
Which is more common, "enchaînement" or "enchaînements"?
"enchaînement" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #16,868 in our French list, against #43,409 for "enchaînements". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Sound matches; spelling doesn't. Use the exits below to lock the right form or check a cousin pair.

  • Full dictionary entry for "enchaînement" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "enchaînements" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #98,495 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "enchaînement" and "enchaînements" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "enchaînements vs entraînements". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #98,495 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