éoliennevséoliennesWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: éolienne is a noun, éoliennes is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“éolienne” is a noun and “éoliennes” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#17,048
“éolienne” frequency rank
#14,830
“éoliennes” frequency rank
31878
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature éolienne éoliennes
Definition Turbine mue par le vent. Féminin pluriel de éolien.

Same sound, different letters: éolienne vs éoliennes

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 8 letters. éolienne runs 8 letters (VVCVVCCV) against éoliennes's 9 (VVCVVCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

8 ch
éolienne
9 ch
éoliennes

Ear matches; page differs - éolienne and éoliennes

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: éolienne and éoliennes carry the same recorded pronunciation, \e.ɔ.ljɛn\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is anoun, the other anadjective, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “éolienne” sits inside “éoliennes”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 31878, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

éolienne is recorded at frequency rank #17,048, classified as anoun, pronounced \e.ɔ.ljɛn\. éoliennes is at rank #14,830, tagged as anadj, pronounced \e.ɔ.ljɛn\.

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 31878, this pair ranks #301,000 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of éolienne vs éoliennes

Shared letters: eilnoé. Private to "éolienne": -. Private to "éoliennes": s.

"éolienne" · 8 letters · shape VVCVVCCV  ·  "éoliennes" · 9 letters · shape VVCVVCCVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "éolienne" for "éoliennes" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "éolienne" is a noun and "éoliennes" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "éolienne" vs "éoliennes" - which ranks higher?
"éoliennes" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #14,830 in our French list, against #17,048 for "éolienne". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

You've separated the homophone pair "éolienne" / "éoliennes". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.

  • Full dictionary entry for "éolienne" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "éoliennes" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #301,000 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "éolienne" and "éoliennes" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "éolienne vs éoliens". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #301,000 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