franchesvsfranchirTell them apart

Quick tell: franches is a adjective, franchir is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“franches” is an adjective and “franchir” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#22,866
“franches” frequency rank
#6,508
“franchir” frequency rank
29374
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature franches franchir
Definition Féminin pluriel de franc (dans le sens de « libre, vrai, sincère, exempt de taxes, etc. »). Passer au-delà d’un obstacle.

Where the eye mixes franches and franchir

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence. franches and franchir follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CCVCCCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

8 ch
franches
8 ch
franchir

Visual trap between franches and franchir

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: franches is \fʁɑ̃ʃ\ while franchir is \fʁɑ̃.ʃiʁ\. 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 (adjective vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 29374, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

franches is recorded at frequency rank #22,866, classified as anadj, pronounced \fʁɑ̃ʃ\. franchir is at rank #6,508, tagged as averb, pronounced \fʁɑ̃.ʃiʁ\.

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 29374, this pair ranks #317,080 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of franches vs franchir

Shared letters: acfhnr. Private to "franches": es. Private to "franchir": i.

"franches" · 8 letters · shape CCVCCCVC  ·  "franchir" · 8 letters · shape CCVCCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • franchesfarnches · ffranches · fracnhes · francches · francehs · franchess · franchhes · franchse
  • franchirfarnchir · ffranchir · fracnhir · francchir · franchhir · franchirr · franchri · francihr

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "franches" and "franchir" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "franches" is an adjective and "franchir" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "franches" vs "franchir" - which ranks higher?
"franchir" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #6,508 in our French list, against #22,866 for "franches". 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 "franches" and "franchir" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "franches" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "franchir" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #317,080 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "franches" and "franchir" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "franches vs francos". 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 #317,080 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