Which to use
“hareng” and “harengs” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #36,877
- “hareng” frequency rank
- #49,696
- “harengs” frequency rank
- 86573
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | hareng | harengs |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Poisson de la famille des clupéidés d’à peu près 25 cm de long, au corps fin et pourvu d’une petite bouche, au corps bleuté sur le dessus et argenté en-dessous, qui ne se pêche que dans l’océan et en certaines saisons de l’année, où il arrive par bancs. | Pluriel de hareng. |
Same sound, different letters: hareng vs harengs
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 6 letters. hareng runs 6 letters (CVCVCC) against harengs's 7 (CVCVCCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Ear matches; page differs - hareng and harengs
This is the hard kind. hareng and harengs are pronounced identically (^((h aspiré))\a.ʁɑ̃\) 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) - “hareng” sits inside “harengs”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 86573, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
hareng is recorded at frequency rank #36,877, classified as anoun, pronounced ^((h aspiré))\a.ʁɑ̃\. harengs is at rank #49,696, tagged as anoun, pronounced ^((h aspiré))\a.ʁɑ̃\.
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 86573, this pair ranks #9,520 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of hareng vs harengs
Shared letters: aeghnr. Private to "hareng": -. Private to "harengs": s.
"hareng" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCC · "harengs" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "hareng" and "harengs" be used interchangeably?
Frequency check: "hareng" vs "harengs" - which ranks higher?
After this comparison
"hareng" and "harengs" share a sound, keep the gloss open, then jump to the headword or a nearby trap.
- Full dictionary entry for "hareng" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "harengs" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #9,520 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "hareng" and "harengs" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "hareng vs having". 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 #9,520 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.