Which to use
“enfant” and “enfants” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #433
- “enfant” frequency rank
- #243
- “enfants” frequency rank
- 676
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | enfant | enfants |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Garçon ou fille qui n’a pas encore atteint l’adolescence. | Pluriel d’enfant. |
Same sound, different letters: enfant vs enfants
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 6 letters. enfant runs 6 letters (VCCVCC) against enfants's 7 (VCCVCCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Homophone desk: enfant vs enfants
This is the hard kind. enfant and enfants are pronounced identically (\ɑ̃.fɑ̃\) 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) - “enfant” sits inside “enfants”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 676, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
enfant is recorded at frequency rank #433, classified as anoun, pronounced \ɑ̃.fɑ̃\. 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 676, this pair ranks #439,299 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of enfant vs enfants
Shared letters: aefnt. Private to "enfant": -. Private to "enfants": s.
"enfant" · 6 letters · shape VCCVCC · "enfants" · 7 letters · shape VCCVCCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "enfant" for "enfants" ever safe?
Frequency check: "enfant" vs "enfants" - which ranks higher?
After this comparison
"enfant" and "enfants" share a sound, keep the gloss open, then jump to the headword or a nearby trap.
- Full dictionary entry for "enfant" 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 #439,299 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "enfant" and "enfants" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "enfants vs entrants". 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 #439,299 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.