indirectevsindirectsWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#16,912
“indirecte” frequency rank
#15,413
“indirects” frequency rank
32325
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature indirecte indirects
Definition Féminin singulier de indirect. Masculin pluriel de indirect.

Same sound, different letters: indirecte vs indirects

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 8 letters.

9 ch
indirecte
9 ch
indirects

Same sound, different spelling - indirecte / indirects

This is the hard kind. indirecte and indirects are pronounced identically (\ɛ̃.di.ʁɛkt\) 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 a single letter - e in “indirecte” becomes s in “indirects”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 32325, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

indirecte is recorded at frequency rank #16,912, classified as anadj, pronounced \ɛ̃.di.ʁɛkt\. indirects is at rank #15,413, tagged as anadj, pronounced \ɛ̃.di.ʁɛkt\.

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 32325, this pair ranks #298,007 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of indirecte vs indirects

Shared letters: cdeinrt. Private to "indirecte": -. Private to "indirects": s.

"indirecte" · 9 letters · shape VCCVCVCCV  ·  "indirects" · 9 letters · shape VCCVCVCCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • indirecteidnirecte · inddirecte · indiercte · indircete · indireccte · indirecet · indirectte · indiretce
  • indirectsidnirects · inddirects · indiercts · indircets · indireccts · indirecst · indirectss · indirectts

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "indirecte" and "indirects" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are pronounced the same (\ɛ̃.di.ʁɛkt\), 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, "indirecte" or "indirects"?
"indirects" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #15,413 in our French list, against #16,912 for "indirecte". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "indirecte" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "indirects" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #298,007 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "indirecte" and "indirects" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "indigents vs indirects". 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 #298,007 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