Which to use
“enfants” is a noun and “errants” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #243
- “enfants” frequency rank
- #28,542
- “errants” frequency rank
- 28785
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | enfants | errants |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Pluriel d’enfant. | Masculin pluriel de errant. |
Where the eye mixes enfants and errants
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. enfants and errants follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (VCCVCCC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Visual trap between enfants and errants
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: enfants is \ɑ̃.fɑ̃\ while errants is \ɛ.ʁɑ̃\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 28785, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
enfants is recorded at frequency rank #243, classified as anoun, pronounced \ɑ̃.fɑ̃\. errants is at rank #28,542, tagged as anadj, pronounced \ɛ.ʁɑ̃\.
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 28785, this pair ranks #320,727 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of enfants vs errants
Shared letters: aenst. Private to "enfants": f. Private to "errants": r.
"enfants" · 7 letters · shape VCCVCCC · "errants" · 7 letters · shape VCCVCCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "enfants" and "errants" be used interchangeably?
In ordinary French text, does "enfants" or "errants" 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 "enfants" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "errants" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #320,727 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "enfants" and "errants" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "errants vs errent". 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 #320,727 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.