familièrevsfamiliersWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#20,445
“familière” frequency rank
#19,286
“familiers” frequency rank
39731
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature familière familiers
Definition Féminin singulier de familier. Masculin pluriel de familier.

Where the eye mixes familière and familiers

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 7 letters in sequence. familière (CVCVCVVCV) and familiers (CVCVCVVCC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

9 ch
familière
9 ch
familiers

Look-alike desk: familière vs familiers

A purely visual mix-up. familière (\fa.mi.ljɛʁ\) and familiers (\fa.mi.lje\) 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 39731, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

familière is recorded at frequency rank #20,445, classified as anadj, pronounced \fa.mi.ljɛʁ\. familiers is at rank #19,286, tagged as anadj, pronounced \fa.mi.lje\.

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 39731, this pair ranks #245,805 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of familière vs familiers

Shared letters: aefilmr. Private to "familière": è. Private to "familiers": s.

"familière" · 9 letters · shape CVCVCVVCV  ·  "familiers" · 9 letters · shape CVCVCVVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • familiersafmiliers · faimliers · famiilers · famileirs · familierrs · familierss · familiesr · familires

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "familière" and "familiers" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\fa.mi.ljɛʁ\ versus \fa.mi.lje\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "familière" vs "familiers" - which ranks higher?
"familiers" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #19,286 in our French list, against #20,445 for "familière". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "familière" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "familiers" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #245,805 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "familière" and "familiers" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "familiers vs fusiliers". 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 #245,805 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