Which to use
“furtif” and “furtifs” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #32,413
- “furtif” frequency rank
- #49,667
- “furtifs” frequency rank
- 82080
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | furtif | furtifs |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Qui se fait à la dérobée. | Masculin pluriel de furtif. |
Same sound, different letters: furtif vs furtifs
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 6 letters. furtif runs 6 letters (CVCCVC) against furtifs's 7 (CVCCVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Same sound, different spelling - furtif / furtifs
This is the hard kind. furtif and furtifs are pronounced identically (\fyʁ.tif\) 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) - “furtif” sits inside “furtifs”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 82080, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
furtif is recorded at frequency rank #32,413, classified as anadj, pronounced \fyʁ.tif\. furtifs is at rank #49,667, tagged as anadj, pronounced \fyʁ.tif\.
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 82080, this pair ranks #17,467 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of furtif vs furtifs
Shared letters: firtu. Private to "furtif": -. Private to "furtifs": s.
"furtif" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC · "furtifs" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "furtif" and "furtifs" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "furtif" or "furtifs" show up more?
What to do next
Sound matches; spelling doesn't. Use the exits below to lock the right form or check a cousin pair.
- Full dictionary entry for "furtif" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "furtifs" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #17,467 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "furtif" and "furtifs" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "furtifs vs furtive". 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 #17,467 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.