Which to use
“enfance” and “enfants” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #1,951
- “enfance” frequency rank
- #243
- “enfants” frequency rank
- 2194
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | enfance | enfants |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Première partie de la vie de l’être humain, précédant l’adolescence. | Pluriel d’enfant. |
Where the eye mixes enfance and enfants
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. enfance (VCCVCCV) and enfants (VCCVCCC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.
Why the eye confuses enfance with enfants
A purely visual mix-up. enfance (\ɑ̃.fɑ̃s\) and enfants (\ɑ̃.fɑ̃\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 2194, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
enfance is recorded at frequency rank #1,951, classified as anoun, pronounced \ɑ̃.fɑ̃s\. enfants is at rank #243, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ɑ̃.fɑ̃\.
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 2194, this pair ranks #436,605 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of enfance vs enfants
Shared letters: aefn. Private to "enfance": c. Private to "enfants": st.
"enfance" · 7 letters · shape VCCVCCV · "enfants" · 7 letters · shape VCCVCCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "enfance" and "enfants" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "enfance" or "enfants" show up more?
After this comparison
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "enfance" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "enfants" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #436,605 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "enfance" and "enfants" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "enfance vs enfoncée". 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 #436,605 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.