gradésvsguidesTell them apart

Quick tell: gradés is a adjective, guides is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#32,835
“gradés” frequency rank
#9,174
“guides” frequency rank
42009
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature gradés guides
Definition Masculin pluriel de gradé. Pluriel de guide.

Where the eye mixes gradés and guides

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

6 ch
gradés
6 ch
guides

Visual trap between gradés and guides

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: gradés is \ɡʁa.de\ while guides is \ɡid\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 42009, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

gradés is recorded at frequency rank #32,835, classified as anadj, pronounced \ɡʁa.de\. guides is at rank #9,174, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ɡid\.

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 42009, this pair ranks #228,880 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of gradés vs guides

Shared letters: dgs. Private to "gradés": aré. Private to "guides": eiu.

"gradés" · 6 letters · shape CCVCVC  ·  "guides" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • guidesgguides · giudes · gudies · guiddes · guidess · guidse · guieds · ugides

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "gradés" for "guides" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "gradés" is an adjective and "guides" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "gradés" or "guides"?
"guides" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #9,174 in our French list, against #32,835 for "gradés". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "gradés" and "guides" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "gradés" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "guides" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #228,880 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "gradés" and "guides" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "gradés vs gradué". 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 #228,880 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