éteintevséteintesWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#14,395
“éteinte” frequency rank
#28,421
“éteintes” frequency rank
42816
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature éteinte éteintes
Definition Moment où une bougie arrête de se consumer. Féminin pluriel de éteint.

Same sound, different letters: éteinte vs éteintes

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 7 letters. éteinte runs 7 letters (VCVVCCV) against éteintes's 8 (VCVVCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

7 ch
éteinte
8 ch
éteintes

Homophone desk: éteinte vs éteintes

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: éteinte and éteintes carry the same recorded pronunciation, \e.tɛ̃t\. 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) - “éteinte” sits inside “éteintes”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 42816, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

éteinte is recorded at frequency rank #14,395, classified as anoun, pronounced \e.tɛ̃t\. éteintes is at rank #28,421, tagged as anadj, pronounced \e.tɛ̃t\.

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 42816, this pair ranks #222,734 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of éteinte vs éteintes

Shared letters: einté. Private to "éteinte": -. Private to "éteintes": s.

"éteinte" · 7 letters · shape VCVVCCV  ·  "éteintes" · 8 letters · shape VCVVCCVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "éteinte" and "éteintes" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "éteinte" is a noun and "éteintes" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "éteinte" vs "éteintes" - which ranks higher?
"éteinte" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #14,395 in our French list, against #28,421 for "éteintes". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

"éteinte" and "éteintes" share a sound, keep the gloss open, then jump to the headword or a nearby trap.

  • Full dictionary entry for "éteinte" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "éteintes" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #222,734 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "éteinte" and "éteintes" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "éteins vs éteintes". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #222,734 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