Which to use
“impair” and “impairs” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #25,687
- “impair” frequency rank
- #46,223
- “impairs” frequency rank
- 71910
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | impair | impairs |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Qui n’est pas pair, qui n’est pas divisible par deux, en parlant d’un nombre entier. | Masculin pluriel de impair. |
Same sound, different letters: impair vs impairs
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 6 letters. impair runs 6 letters (VCCVVC) against impairs's 7 (VCCVVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Same sound, different spelling - impair / impairs
This is the hard kind. impair and impairs are pronounced identically (\ɛ̃.pɛʁ\) and both work as anadjective. 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) - “impair” sits inside “impairs”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 71910, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
impair is recorded at frequency rank #25,687, classified as anadj, pronounced \ɛ̃.pɛʁ\. impairs is at rank #46,223, tagged as anadj, pronounced \ɛ̃.pɛʁ\.
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 71910, this pair ranks #45,840 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of impair vs impairs
Shared letters: aimpr. Private to "impair": -. Private to "impairs": s.
"impair" · 6 letters · shape VCCVVC · "impairs" · 7 letters · shape VCCVVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "impair" and "impairs" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Which is more common, "impair" or "impairs"?
What to do next
You've separated the homophone pair "impair" / "impairs". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.
- Full dictionary entry for "impair" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "impairs" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #45,840 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "impair" and "impairs" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "impairs vs impayés". 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 #45,840 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.