gorillevsgorillesTell them apart

Which to use

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

#24,986
“gorille” frequency rank
#27,826
“gorilles” frequency rank
52812
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature gorille gorilles
Definition Grand singe de la famille des hominidés dont la forme se rapproche le plus de celle de l’être humain et qu’on trouve dans plusieurs pays d’Afrique. Pluriel de gorille.

Same sound, different letters: gorille vs gorilles

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 7 letters.

7 ch
gorille
8 ch
gorilles

Same sound, different spelling - gorille / gorilles

This is the hard kind. gorille and gorilles are pronounced identically (\ɡɔ.ʁij\) 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) - “gorille” sits inside “gorilles”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 52812, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

gorille is recorded at frequency rank #24,986, classified as anoun, pronounced \ɡɔ.ʁij\. gorilles is at rank #27,826, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ɡɔ.ʁij\.

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 52812, this pair ranks #145,111 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of gorille vs gorilles

Shared letters: egilor. Private to "gorille": -. Private to "gorilles": s.

"gorille" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCCV  ·  "gorilles" · 8 letters · shape CVCVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • gorilleggorille · goirlle · gorile · gorilel · gorlile · gorrille · groille · ogrille
  • gorillesggorilles · goirlles · gorilels · goriles · gorilless · gorillse · gorliles · gorrilles

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "gorille" and "gorilles" be used interchangeably?
No. They are pronounced the same (\ɡɔ.ʁij\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
Frequency check: "gorille" vs "gorilles" - which ranks higher?
"gorille" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #24,986 in our French list, against #27,826 for "gorilles". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "gorille" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "gorilles" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #145,111 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "gorille" and "gorilles" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "gorilla vs gorilles". 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 #145,111 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