glacevsglassTell them apart

Which to use

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

#1,954
“glace” frequency rank
#17,964
“glass” frequency rank
19918
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature glace glass
Definition ou Eau à l’état solide. Verre.

Same sound, different letters: glace vs glass

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 3 letters.

5 ch
glace
5 ch
glass

Homophone desk: glace vs glass

This is the hard kind. glace and glass are pronounced identically (\ɡlas\) 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 share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 19918, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

glace is recorded at frequency rank #1,954, classified as anoun, pronounced \ɡlas\. glass is at rank #17,964, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ɡlas\.

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 19918, this pair ranks #370,865 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of glace vs glass

Shared letters: agl. Private to "glace": ce. Private to "glass": s.

"glace" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV  ·  "glass" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • glacegalce · gglace · glacce · glaec · glcae · gllace · lgace
  • glassgalss · gglass · gllass · glsas · lgass

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "glace" and "glass" be used interchangeably?
No. They are pronounced the same (\ɡlas\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
Which is more common, "glace" or "glass"?
"glace" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,954 in our French list, against #17,964 for "glass". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

You've separated the homophone pair "glace" / "glass". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.

  • Full dictionary entry for "glace" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "glass" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #370,865 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "glace" and "glass" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "glane vs glass". 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 #370,865 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