gaminevsgaminesWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: gamine is a noun, gamines is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“gamine” is a noun and “gamines” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#9,487
“gamine” frequency rank
#27,077
“gamines” frequency rank
36564
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature gamine gamines
Definition Enfant pauvre qui vit dans les rues. Féminin pluriel de gamin.

Same sound, different letters: gamine vs gamines

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 6 letters. gamine runs 6 letters (CVCVCV) against gamines's 7 (CVCVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
gamine
7 ch
gamines

Homophone desk: gamine vs gamines

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: gamine and gamines carry the same recorded pronunciation, \ɡa.min\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is anoun, the other anadjective, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “gamine” sits inside “gamines”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 36564, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

gamine is recorded at frequency rank #9,487, classified as anoun, pronounced \ɡa.min\. gamines is at rank #27,077, tagged as anadj, pronounced \ɡa.min\.

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 36564, this pair ranks #268,738 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of gamine vs gamines

Shared letters: aegimn. Private to "gamine": -. Private to "gamines": s.

"gamine" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV  ·  "gamines" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • gamine ← agmine · gaimne · gamien · gaminne · gammine · gamnie · ggamine · gmaine
  • gamines ← agmines · gaimnes · gamiens · gaminess · gaminnes · gaminse · gammines · gamnies

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "gamine" and "gamines" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "gamine" is a noun and "gamines" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "gamine" or "gamines" show up more?
"gamine" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #9,487 in our French list, against #27,077 for "gamines". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

"gamine" and "gamines" share a sound, keep the gloss open, then jump to the headword or a nearby trap.

  • Full dictionary entry for "gamine" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "gamines" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #268,738 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "gamine" and "gamines" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "gamètes vs gamines". 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 #268,738 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