fusilvsfusilsConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#5,661
“fusil” frequency rank
#10,329
“fusils” frequency rank
15990
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature fusil fusils
Definition Petite pièce d’acier avec laquelle on battait un silex pour en tirer du feu. Pluriel de fusil.

Same sound, different letters: fusil vs fusils

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 5 letters.

5 ch
fusil
6 ch
fusils

Ear matches; page differs - fusil and fusils

This is the hard kind. fusil and fusils are pronounced identically (\fy.zi\) and both work as anoun. 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) - “fusil” sits inside “fusils”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 15990, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

fusil is recorded at frequency rank #5,661, classified as anoun, pronounced \fy.zi\. fusils is at rank #10,329, tagged as anoun, pronounced \fy.zi\.

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 15990, this pair ranks #389,906 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of fusil vs fusils

Shared letters: filsu. Private to "fusil": -. Private to "fusils": -.

"fusil" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "fusils" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • fusilffusil · fsuil · fuisl · fusill · fusli · fussil · ufsil
  • fusilsffusils · fsuils · fuisls · fusills · fusilss · fusisl · fuslis · fussils

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "fusil" and "fusils" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are pronounced the same (\fy.zi\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
Frequency check: "fusil" vs "fusils" - which ranks higher?
"fusil" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #5,661 in our French list, against #10,329 for "fusils". 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 "fusil" / "fusils". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.

  • Full dictionary entry for "fusil" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "fusils" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #389,906 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "fusil" and "fusils" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "fuse vs fusil". 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 #389,906 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