fonciervsfonciersTell them apart

Which to use

“foncier” and “fonciers” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#11,222
“foncier” frequency rank
#20,728
“fonciers” frequency rank
31950
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature foncier fonciers
Definition Relatif à une propriété immobilière. Masculin pluriel de foncier.

Same sound, different letters: foncier vs fonciers

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 7 letters. foncier runs 7 letters (CVCCVVC) against fonciers's 8 (CVCCVVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

7 ch
foncier
8 ch
fonciers

Same sound, different spelling - foncier / fonciers

This is the hard kind. foncier and fonciers are pronounced identically (\fɔ̃.sje\) and both work as anadjective. 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) - “foncier” sits inside “fonciers”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 31950, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

foncier is recorded at frequency rank #11,222, classified as anadj, pronounced \fɔ̃.sje\. fonciers is at rank #20,728, tagged as anadj, pronounced \fɔ̃.sje\.

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 31950, this pair ranks #300,536 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of foncier vs fonciers

Shared letters: cefinor. Private to "foncier": -. Private to "fonciers": s.

"foncier" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVVC  ·  "fonciers" · 8 letters · shape CVCCVVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • foncier ← ffoncier · fnocier · focnier · fonccier · fonceir · foncierr · foncire · fonicer
  • fonciers ← ffonciers · fnociers · focniers · foncciers · fonceirs · foncierrs · foncierss · fonciesr

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "foncier" and "fonciers" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are pronounced the same (\fɔ̃.sje\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
Frequency check: "foncier" vs "fonciers" - which ranks higher?
"foncier" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #11,222 in our French list, against #20,728 for "fonciers". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

You've separated the homophone pair "foncier" / "fonciers". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.

  • Full dictionary entry for "foncier" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "fonciers" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #300,536 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "foncier" and "fonciers" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Fincher vs foncier". 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 #300,536 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