Which to use
“friendly” is an adjective and “friends” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #26,736
- “friendly” frequency rank
- #14,679
- “friends” frequency rank
- 41415
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | friendly | friends |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Amical, bienveillant. | Pluriel de friend. |
Where the eye mixes friendly and friends
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence.
Look-alike desk: friendly vs friends
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: friendly is \fʁi.jɑ̃.li\ while friends is \fɹɛndz\. 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 (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 41415, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
friendly is recorded at frequency rank #26,736, classified as anadj, pronounced \fʁi.jɑ̃.li\. friends is at rank #14,679, tagged as anoun, pronounced \fɹɛndz\.
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 41415, this pair ranks #233,287 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of friendly vs friends
Shared letters: definr. Private to "friendly": ly. Private to "friends": s.
"friendly" · 8 letters · shape CCVVCCCV · "friends" · 7 letters · shape CCVVCCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "friendly" and "friends" be used interchangeably?
In ordinary French text, does "friendly" or "friends" show up more?
What to do next
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "friendly" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "friends" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #233,287 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "friendly" and "friends" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "friends vs Fries". 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 #233,287 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.