Which to use
“femmes” and “fèves” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #291
- “femmes” frequency rank
- #26,017
- “fèves” frequency rank
- 26308
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | femmes | fèves |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Pluriel de femme. | Pluriel de fève. |
Where the eye mixes femmes and fèves
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.
Look-alike desk: femmes vs fèves
A purely visual mix-up. femmes (\fam\) and fèves (\fɛv\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 26308, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
femmes is recorded at frequency rank #291, classified as anoun, pronounced \fam\. fèves is at rank #26,017, tagged as anoun, pronounced \fɛv\.
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 26308, this pair ranks #335,835 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of femmes vs fèves
Shared letters: efs. Private to "femmes": m. Private to "fèves": vè.
"femmes" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC · "fèves" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- femmes ← efmmes · femems · femes · femmess · femmse · ffemmes · fmemes
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "femmes" and "fèves" be used interchangeably?
Frequency check: "femmes" vs "fèves" - which ranks higher?
After this comparison
Eye-level mix-up between "femmes" and "fèves" 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 "fèves" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #335,835 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "femmes" and "fèves" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Fee vs fèves". 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 #335,835 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.