Which to use
“festival” and “festivals” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #1,413
- “festival” frequency rank
- #7,961
- “festivals” frequency rank
- 9374
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | festival | festivals |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Événement festif. | Pluriel de festival. |
Same sound, different letters: festival vs festivals
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 8 letters. festival runs 8 letters (CVCCVCVC) against festivals's 9 (CVCCVCVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Same sound, different spelling - festival / festivals
This is the hard kind. festival and festivals are pronounced identically (\fɛs.ti.val\) and both work as anoun. 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) - “festival” sits inside “festivals”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 9374, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
festival is recorded at frequency rank #1,413, classified as anoun, pronounced \fɛs.ti.val\. festivals is at rank #7,961, tagged as anoun, pronounced \fɛs.ti.val\.
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 9374, this pair ranks #416,880 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of festival vs festivals
Shared letters: aefilstv. Private to "festival": -. Private to "festivals": -.
"festival" · 8 letters · shape CVCCVCVC · "festivals" · 9 letters · shape CVCCVCVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "festival" for "festivals" ever safe?
Which is more common, "festival" or "festivals"?
After this comparison
"festival" and "festivals" share a sound, keep the gloss open, then jump to the headword or a nearby trap.
- Full dictionary entry for "festival" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "festivals" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #416,880 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "festival" and "festivals" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "festivals vs festives". 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 #416,880 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.