époquesvsévêquesWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#10,260
“époques” frequency rank
#6,578
“évêques” frequency rank
16838
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature époques évêques
Definition Pluriel de époque. Pluriel de évêque.

Where the eye mixes époques and évêques

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence.

7 ch
époques
7 ch
évêques

Why the eye confuses époques with évêques

A purely visual mix-up. époques (\e.pɔk\) and évêques (\e.vɛk\) 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 16838, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

époques is recorded at frequency rank #10,260, classified as anoun, pronounced \e.pɔk\. évêques is at rank #6,578, tagged as anoun, pronounced \e.vɛk\.

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 16838, this pair ranks #386,032 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of époques vs évêques

Shared letters: eqsué. Private to "époques": op. Private to "évêques": .

"époques" · 7 letters · shape VCVCVVC  ·  "évêques" · 7 letters · shape VCVCVVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "époques" for "évêques" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\e.pɔk\ versus \e.vɛk\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "époques" or "évêques"?
"évêques" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #6,578 in our French list, against #10,260 for "époques". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "époques" and "évêques" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "époques" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "évêques" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #386,032 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "époques" and "évêques" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "épopées vs époques". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #386,032 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