finesvsfiniConfusable pair

Quick tell: fines is a noun, fini is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“fines” is a noun and “fini” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#7,694
“fines” frequency rank
#789
“fini” frequency rank
8483
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature fines fini
Definition Granulat composé d’éléments de très petites dimensions utilisé soit comme charge de remplissage pour augmenter la compacité notamment d'un béton, d'un sol, soit comme constituant de certains liants hydrauliques. Qui a une fin, limité.

Where the eye mixes fines and fini

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. fines runs 5 letters (CVCVC) against fini's 4 (CVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
fines
4 ch
fini

Visual trap between fines and fini

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: fines is \fin\ while fini is \fi.ni\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 8483, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

fines is recorded at frequency rank #7,694, classified as anoun, pronounced \fin\. fini is at rank #789, tagged as anadj, pronounced \fi.ni\.

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 8483, this pair ranks #419,876 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of fines vs fini

Shared letters: fin. Private to "fines": es. Private to "fini": -.

"fines" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "fini" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • finesffines · fiens · finess · finnes · finse · fnies · ifnes
  • finiffini · fiin · finni · fnii · ifni

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "fines" and "fini" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "fines" is a noun and "fini" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "fines" vs "fini" - which ranks higher?
"fini" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #789 in our French list, against #7,694 for "fines". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "fines" and "fini" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "fines" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "fini" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #419,876 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "fines" and "fini" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "fines vs Finger". 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 #419,876 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list