expériencevsexpériencesWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#722
“expérience” frequency rank
#2,674
“expériences” frequency rank
3396
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature expérience expériences
Definition Connaissance des choses, acquise par l’usage du monde et de la vie. Pluriel de expérience.

Same sound, different letters: expérience vs expériences

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 10 letters.

10 ch
expérience
11 ch
expériences

Ear matches; page differs - expérience and expériences

This is the hard kind. expérience and expériences are pronounced identically (\ɛks.peʁ.jɑ̃s\) and both work as anoun. 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) - “expérience” sits inside “expériences”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 3396, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

expérience is recorded at frequency rank #722, classified as anoun, pronounced \ɛks.peʁ.jɑ̃s\. expériences is at rank #2,674, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ɛk.spe.ʁjɑ̃s\.

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 3396, this pair ranks #434,136 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of expérience vs expériences

Shared letters: ceinprxé. Private to "expérience": -. Private to "expériences": s.

"expérience" · 10 letters · shape VCCVCVVCCV  ·  "expériences" · 11 letters · shape VCCVCVVCCVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "expérience" and "expériences" be used interchangeably?
No. They are pronounced the same (\ɛks.peʁ.jɑ̃s\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
In ordinary French text, does "expérience" or "expériences" show up more?
"expérience" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #722 in our French list, against #2,674 for "expériences". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "expérience" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "expériences" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #434,136 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "expérience" and "expériences" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "expériences vs expérimentés". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #434,136 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