guirlandevsguirlandesTell them apart

Which to use

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

#32,424
“guirlande” frequency rank
#27,829
“guirlandes” frequency rank
60253
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature guirlande guirlandes
Definition Chaîne, feston de fleurs ou de feuillage, ou de leur imitation synthétique. Pluriel de guirlande.

Same sound, different letters: guirlande vs guirlandes

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

9 ch
guirlande
10 ch
guirlandes

Ear matches; page differs - guirlande and guirlandes

This is the hard kind. guirlande and guirlandes are pronounced identically (\ɡiʁ.lɑ̃d\) 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) - “guirlande” sits inside “guirlandes”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 60253, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

guirlande is recorded at frequency rank #32,424, classified as anoun, pronounced \ɡiʁ.lɑ̃d\. guirlandes is at rank #27,829, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ɡiʁ.lɑ̃d\.

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 60253, this pair ranks #98,628 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of guirlande vs guirlandes

Shared letters: adegilnru. Private to "guirlande": -. Private to "guirlandes": s.

"guirlande" · 9 letters · shape CVVCCVCCV  ·  "guirlandes" · 10 letters · shape CVVCCVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • guirlande ← gguirlande · giurlande · guilrande · guiralnde · guirladne · guirlandde · guirlaned · guirlannde
  • guirlandes ← gguirlandes · giurlandes · guilrandes · guiralndes · guirladnes · guirlanddes · guirlandess · guirlandse

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "guirlande" for "guirlandes" ever safe?
No. They are pronounced the same (\ɡiʁ.lɑ̃d\), 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, "guirlande" or "guirlandes"?
"guirlandes" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #27,829 in our French list, against #32,424 for "guirlande". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "guirlande" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "guirlandes" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #98,628 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "guirlande" and "guirlandes" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Guérande vs guirlande". 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 #98,628 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