Which to use
“femmes” is a noun and “fermes” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #291
- “femmes” frequency rank
- #5,659
- “fermes” frequency rank
- 5950
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | femmes | fermes |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Pluriel de femme. | Pluriel de ferme. |
Where the eye mixes femmes and fermes
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence.
Visual trap between femmes and fermes
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: femmes is \fam\ while fermes is \fɛʁm\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by a single letter - m in “femmes” becomes r in “fermes”, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 5950, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
femmes is recorded at frequency rank #291, classified as anoun, pronounced \fam\. fermes is at rank #5,659, tagged as anadj, pronounced \fɛʁm\.
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 5950, this pair ranks #427,596 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of femmes vs fermes
Shared letters: efms. Private to "femmes": -. Private to "fermes": r.
"femmes" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC · "fermes" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "femmes" for "fermes" ever safe?
Which is more common, "femmes" or "fermes"?
Useful next steps
Eye-level mix-up between "femmes" and "fermes" 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 "fermes" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #427,596 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "femmes" and "fermes" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "fermes vs Fries". 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 #427,596 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.