glacisvsglandsTell them apart

Which to use

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

#40,786
“glacis” frequency rank
#30,628
“glands” frequency rank
71414
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature glacis glands
Definition Talus, pente douce et unie. Pluriel de gland.

Where the eye mixes glacis and glands

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. glacis (CCVCVC) and glands (CCVCCC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

6 ch
glacis
6 ch
glands

Why the eye confuses glacis with glands

A purely visual mix-up. glacis (\ɡla.si\) and glands (\ɡlɑ̃\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 71414, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

glacis is recorded at frequency rank #40,786, classified as anoun, pronounced \ɡla.si\. glands is at rank #30,628, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ɡlɑ̃\.

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 71414, this pair ranks #47,631 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of glacis vs glands

Shared letters: agls. Private to "glacis": ci. Private to "glands": dn.

"glacis" · 6 letters · shape CCVCVC  ·  "glands" · 6 letters · shape CCVCCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • glacis ← galcis · gglacis · glaccis · glaciss · glacsi · glaics · glcais · gllacis
  • glands ← galnds · gglands · gladns · glandds · glandss · glannds · glansd · gllands

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "glacis" for "glands" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\ɡla.si\ versus \ɡlɑ̃\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "glacis" vs "glands" - which ranks higher?
"glands" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #30,628 in our French list, against #40,786 for "glacis". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "glacis" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "glands" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #47,631 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "glacis" and "glands" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "glacis vs gracie". 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 #47,631 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