Which to use
“famine” and “famines” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #10,500
- “famine” frequency rank
- #35,508
- “famines” frequency rank
- 46008
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | famine | famines |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Indisponibilité générale des aliments les plus essentiels. | Pluriel de famine. |
Same sound, different letters: famine vs famines
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 6 letters. famine runs 6 letters (CVCVCV) against famines's 7 (CVCVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Same sound, different spelling - famine / famines
This is the hard kind. famine and famines are pronounced identically (\fa.min\) 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) - “famine” sits inside “famines”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 46008, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
famine is recorded at frequency rank #10,500, classified as anoun, pronounced \fa.min\. famines is at rank #35,508, tagged as anoun, pronounced \fa.min\.
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 46008, this pair ranks #198,334 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of famine vs famines
Shared letters: aefimn. Private to "famine": -. Private to "famines": s.
"famine" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV · "famines" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "famine" and "famines" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "famine" or "famines" show up more?
Useful next steps
"famine" and "famines" share a sound, keep the gloss open, then jump to the headword or a nearby trap.
- Full dictionary entry for "famine" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "famines" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #198,334 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "famine" and "famines" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "faires vs famines". 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 #198,334 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.