farouche vs farouches, What's the Difference?

Which to use

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

#20,139
“farouche” frequency rank: #43,428
“farouches” frequency rank: 63567
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	farouche	farouches
Definition	Sauvage, indompté, qui s’enfuit quand on l’approche, en parlant des bêtes.	Pluriel de farouche.

Same sound, different letters: farouche vs farouches

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 8 letters. farouche runs 8 letters (CVCVVCCV) against farouches's 9 (CVCVVCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

8 ch

farouche

9 ch

farouches

Same sound, different spelling - farouche / farouches

This is the hard kind. farouche and farouches are pronounced identically (\fa.ʁuʃ\) 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) - “farouche” sits inside “farouches”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 63567, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

farouche is recorded at frequency rank #20,139, classified as anadj, pronounced \fa.ʁuʃ\. farouches is at rank #43,428, tagged as anadj, pronounced \fa.ʁuʃ\.

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 63567, this pair ranks #81,339 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of farouche vs farouches

Shared letters: acefhoru. Private to "farouche": -. Private to "farouches": s.

"farouche" · 8 letters · shape CVCVVCCV · "farouches" · 9 letters · shape CVCVVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

farouche ← afrouche · faoruche · farocuhe · faroucche · farouceh · farouchhe · farouhce · farrouche
farouches ← afrouches · faoruches · farocuhes · faroucches · faroucehs · farouchess · farouchhes · farouchse

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "farouche" for "farouches" ever safe?

No. They are pronounced the same (\fa.ʁuʃ\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.

Frequency check: "farouche" vs "farouches" - which ranks higher?

"farouche" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #20,139 in our French list, against #43,428 for "farouches". 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 "farouche" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "farouches" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #81,339 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"farouche" and "farouches" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "farouche vs fauche". 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 #81,339 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.