gardiennevsgardiennesWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#18,760
“gardienne” frequency rank
#49,108
“gardiennes” frequency rank
67868
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature gardienne gardiennes
Definition Celle qui surveille quelqu’un ou quelque chose. Féminin pluriel de gardien.

Same sound, different letters: gardienne vs gardiennes

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 9 letters. gardienne runs 9 letters (CVCCVVCCV) against gardiennes's 10 (CVCCVVCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

9 ch
gardienne
10 ch
gardiennes

Ear matches; page differs - gardienne and gardiennes

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: gardienne and gardiennes carry the same recorded pronunciation, \ɡaʁ.djɛn\. 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) - “gardienne” sits inside “gardiennes”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 67868, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

gardienne is recorded at frequency rank #18,760, classified as anoun, pronounced \ɡaʁ.djɛn\. gardiennes is at rank #49,108, tagged as anadj, pronounced \ɡaʁ.djɛn\.

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 67868, this pair ranks #61,598 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of gardienne vs gardiennes

Shared letters: adeginr. Private to "gardienne": -. Private to "gardiennes": s.

"gardienne" · 9 letters · shape CVCCVVCCV  ·  "gardiennes" · 10 letters · shape CVCCVVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • gardienneagrdienne · gadrienne · garddienne · gardeinne · gardiene · gardienen · gardinene · garidenne
  • gardiennesagrdiennes · gadriennes · garddiennes · gardeinnes · gardienens · gardienes · gardienness · gardiennse

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "gardienne" and "gardiennes" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "gardienne" is a noun and "gardiennes" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "gardienne" or "gardiennes" show up more?
"gardienne" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #18,760 in our French list, against #49,108 for "gardiennes". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "gardienne" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "gardiennes" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #61,598 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "gardienne" and "gardiennes" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "gardiennage vs gardienne". 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 #61,598 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