Which to use
“important” and “importants” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #478
- “important” frequency rank
- #1,870
- “importants” frequency rank
- 2348
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | important | importants |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Qui importe ; qui est majeur, conséquent, considérable ou d’un grand intérêt. | Masculin pluriel de important. |
Same sound, different letters: important vs importants
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 9 letters.
Ear matches; page differs - important and importants
This is the hard kind. important and importants are pronounced identically (\ɛ̃.pɔʁ.tɑ̃\) 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) - “important” sits inside “importants”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 2348, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
important is recorded at frequency rank #478, classified as anadj, pronounced \ɛ̃.pɔʁ.tɑ̃\. importants is at rank #1,870, tagged as anadj, pronounced \ɛ̃.pɔʁ.tɑ̃\.
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 2348, this pair ranks #436,302 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of important vs importants
Shared letters: aimnoprt. Private to "important": -. Private to "importants": s.
"important" · 9 letters · shape VCCVCCVCC · "importants" · 10 letters · shape VCCVCCVCCC
Known mistypes of this pair
- important ← immportant · imoprtant · imporatnt · imporrtant · importannt · importantt · importatn · importnat
- importants ← immportants · imoprtants · imporatnts · imporrtants · importannts · importanst · importantss · importantts
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "important" and "importants" be used interchangeably?
Frequency check: "important" vs "importants" - which ranks higher?
After this comparison
You've separated the homophone pair "important" / "importants". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.
- Full dictionary entry for "important" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "importants" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #436,302 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "important" and "importants" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "importants vs imposants". 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 #436,302 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.