Which to use
“femmes” is a noun and “fermez” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #291
- “femmes” frequency rank
- #12,783
- “fermez” frequency rank
- 13074
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | femmes | fermez |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Pluriel de femme. | Deuxième personne du pluriel du présent de l’indicatif de fermer. |
Where the eye mixes femmes and fermez
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. femmes and fermez follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Visual trap between femmes and fermez
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: femmes is \fam\ while fermez is \fɛʁ.me\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 13074, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
femmes is recorded at frequency rank #291, classified as anoun, pronounced \fam\. fermez is at rank #12,783, tagged as averb, pronounced \fɛʁ.me\.
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 13074, this pair ranks #402,532 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of femmes vs fermez
Shared letters: efm. Private to "femmes": s. Private to "fermez": rz.
"femmes" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC · "fermez" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "femmes" for "fermez" ever safe?
In ordinary French text, does "femmes" or "fermez" show up more?
What to do next
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "femmes" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "fermez" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #402,532 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "femmes" and "fermez" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "fermez vs ferret". 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 #402,532 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.