loservslosersConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#28,240
“loser” frequency rank
#40,356
“losers” frequency rank
68596
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature loser losers
Definition Personne sans succès social ou professionnel. Perdant, raté dans la vie. Pluriel de loser.

Same sound, different letters: loser vs losers

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 5 letters. loser runs 5 letters (CVCVC) against losers's 6 (CVCVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
loser
6 ch
losers

Homophone desk: loser vs losers

This is the hard kind. loser and losers are pronounced identically (\lu.zœʁ\) 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) - “loser” sits inside “losers”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 68596, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

loser is recorded at frequency rank #28,240, classified as anoun, pronounced \lu.zœʁ\. losers is at rank #40,356, tagged as anoun, pronounced \lu.zœʁ\.

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 68596, this pair ranks #58,495 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of loser vs losers

Shared letters: elors. Private to "loser": -. Private to "losers": -.

"loser" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "losers" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • loser ← lloser · loesr · loserr · losre · losser · lsoer · olser
  • losers ← llosers · loesrs · loserrs · loserss · losesr · losres · lossers · lsoers

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "loser" and "losers" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are pronounced the same (\lu.zœʁ\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
Frequency check: "loser" vs "losers" - which ranks higher?
"loser" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #28,240 in our French list, against #40,356 for "losers". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

You've separated the homophone pair "loser" / "losers". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.

  • Full dictionary entry for "loser" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "losers" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #58,495 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "loser" and "losers" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "looser vs losers". 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 #58,495 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