installationvsinstallationsConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#3,142
“installation” frequency rank
#3,927
“installations” frequency rank
7069
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature installation installations
Definition Action par laquelle on est installé. Pluriel de installation.

Same sound, different letters: installation vs installations

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 12 letters.

12 ch
installation
13 ch
installations

Homophone desk: installation vs installations

This is the hard kind. installation and installations are pronounced identically (\ɛ̃s.ta.la.sjɔ̃\) 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) - “installation” sits inside “installations”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 7069, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

installation is recorded at frequency rank #3,142, classified as anoun, pronounced \ɛ̃s.ta.la.sjɔ̃\. installations is at rank #3,927, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ɛ̃s.ta.la.sjɔ̃\.

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 7069, this pair ranks #424,354 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of installation vs installations

Shared letters: ailnost. Private to "installation": -. Private to "installations": -.

"installation" · 12 letters · shape VCCCVCCVCVVC  ·  "installations" · 13 letters · shape VCCCVCCVCVVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • installationinnstallation · insatllation · insstallation · instalaltion · instalation · installaiton · installatino · installationn
  • installationsinnstallations · insatllations · insstallations · instalaltions · instalations · installaitons · installatinos · installationns

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "installation" and "installations" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are pronounced the same (\ɛ̃s.ta.la.sjɔ̃\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
Frequency check: "installation" vs "installations" - which ranks higher?
"installation" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,142 in our French list, against #3,927 for "installations". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Sound matches; spelling doesn't. Use the exits below to lock the right form or check a cousin pair.

  • Full dictionary entry for "installation" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "installations" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #424,354 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "installation" and "installations" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "installation vs instauration". 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 #424,354 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