légèresvslégèretéConfusable pair

Quick tell: légères is a adjective, légèreté is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#9,508
“légères” frequency rank
#12,415
“légèreté” frequency rank
21923
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature légères légèreté
Definition Féminin pluriel de léger. Qualité de ce qui est léger, peu pesant.

Where the eye mixes légères and légèreté

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence. légères runs 7 letters (CVCVCVC) against légèreté's 8 (CVCVCVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

7 ch
légères
8 ch
légèreté

Visual trap between légères and légèreté

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: légères is \le.ʒɛʁ\ while légèreté is \le.ʒɛʁ.te\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 21923, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

légères is recorded at frequency rank #9,508, classified as anadj, pronounced \le.ʒɛʁ\. légèreté is at rank #12,415, tagged as anoun, pronounced \le.ʒɛʁ.te\.

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 21923, this pair ranks #360,723 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of légères vs légèreté

Shared letters: eglrèé. Private to "légères": s. Private to "légèreté": t.

"légères" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVC  ·  "légèreté" · 8 letters · shape CVCVCVCV

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "légères" and "légèreté" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "légères" is an adjective and "légèreté" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "légères" or "légèreté" show up more?
"légères" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #9,508 in our French list, against #12,415 for "légèreté". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "légères" and "légèreté" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "légères" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "légèreté" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #360,723 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "légères" and "légèreté" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "légères vs Legros". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #360,723 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