indulgencevsindulgentsWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: indulgence is a noun, indulgents is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“indulgence” is a noun and “indulgents” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#24,250
“indulgence” frequency rank
#48,601
“indulgents” frequency rank
72851
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature indulgence indulgents
Definition Facilité à excuser et à pardonner les fautes, les défauts. Masculin pluriel de indulgent.

Where the spellings diverge

Shared letters are muted; the letters that actually set indulgence and indulgents apart are highlighted. They share 8 letters in sequence, which is exactly why the eye skips the difference.

10 ch
indulgence
10 ch
indulgents

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

indulgence and indulgents form a confusable pair in the French index, two distinct headwords that are easily confused because they look alike, sound alike, or both. They share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions - close enough that the eye skips over the difference, far enough that meaning fully diverges. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 72851, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

indulgence is recorded at frequency rank #24,250, classified as anoun, pronounced \ɛ̃.dyl.ʒɑ̃s\. indulgents is at rank #48,601, tagged as anadj, pronounced \ɛ̃.dyl.ʒɑ̃\.

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 72851, this pair ranks #42,550 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Frequency comparison

indulgence#24,250
indulgents#48,601

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "indulgence" and "indulgents" be used interchangeably?
No, "indulgence" and "indulgents" have distinct meanings and cannot be swapped without changing the meaning of a sentence. Understanding the specific definition and context for each word is essential for correct usage.

Remembering indulgence vs indulgents

The fastest way to pick the right one every time.

  • Check the role first: if you need a noun, it's “indulgence”; for an adjective, it's “indulgents”.
  • See each word in full, definition, IPA, etymology and its other confusables. Full “indulgence” entry
  • Browse more pairs most likely to be confused. Most confusable

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list FrequencyWords open word-frequency list