exactvsexactsWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#4,147
“exact” frequency rank
#21,616
“exacts” frequency rank
25763
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature exact exacts
Definition Qui suit rigoureusement la vérité, la convention. Masculin pluriel de exact.

Same sound, different letters: exact vs exacts

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 5 letters. exact runs 5 letters (VCVCC) against exacts's 6 (VCVCCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
exact
6 ch
exacts

Homophone desk: exact vs exacts

This is the hard kind. exact and exacts are pronounced identically (\ɛɡ.zakt\) and both work as anadjective. 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) - “exact” sits inside “exacts”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 25763, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

exact is recorded at frequency rank #4,147, classified as anadj, pronounced \ɛɡ.zakt\. exacts is at rank #21,616, tagged as anadj, pronounced \ɛɡ.zakt\.

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 25763, this pair ranks #338,986 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of exact vs exacts

Shared letters: acetx. Private to "exact": -. Private to "exacts": s.

"exact" · 5 letters · shape VCVCC  ·  "exacts" · 6 letters · shape VCVCCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • exact ← eaxct · exacct · exactt · exatc · excat · exxact · xeact
  • exacts ← eaxcts · exaccts · exacst · exactss · exactts · exatcs · excats · exxacts

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "exact" and "exacts" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are pronounced the same (\ɛɡ.zakt\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
Frequency check: "exact" vs "exacts" - which ranks higher?
"exact" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #4,147 in our French list, against #21,616 for "exacts". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Sound matches; spelling doesn't. Use the exits below to lock the right form or check a cousin pair.

  • Full dictionary entry for "exact" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "exacts" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #338,986 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "exact" and "exacts" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "exacts vs exams". 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 #338,986 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