Which to use
“femmes” and “fentes” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #291
- “femmes” frequency rank
- #33,261
- “fentes” frequency rank
- 33552
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | femmes | fentes |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Pluriel de femme. | Pluriel de fente. |
Where the eye mixes femmes and fentes
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. femmes and fentes follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Why the eye confuses femmes with fentes
A purely visual mix-up. femmes (\fam\) and fentes (\fɑ̃t\) 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 33552, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
femmes is recorded at frequency rank #291, classified as anoun, pronounced \fam\. fentes is at rank #33,261, tagged as anoun, pronounced \fɑ̃t\.
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 33552, this pair ranks #289,861 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of femmes vs fentes
Shared letters: efs. Private to "femmes": m. Private to "fentes": nt.
"femmes" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC · "fentes" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "femmes" and "fentes" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "femmes" or "fentes" show up more?
Useful next steps
Eye-level mix-up between "femmes" and "fentes" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "femmes" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "fentes" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #289,861 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "femmes" and "fentes" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "fentes vs fontes". 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 #289,861 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.