magasinervsmagasinsWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: magasiner is a verb, magasins is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“magasiner” is a verb and “magasins” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#39,387
“magasiner” frequency rank
#3,084
“magasins” frequency rank
42471
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature magasiner magasins
Definition Faire les magasins, faire du lèche-vitrine, sans obligatoirement acheter. Pluriel de magasin.

Where the eye mixes magasiner and magasins

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 7 letters in sequence. magasiner runs 9 letters (CVCVCVCVC) against magasins's 8 (CVCVCVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

9 ch
magasiner
8 ch
magasins

Why the eye confuses magasiner with magasins

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: magasiner is \ma.ɡa.zi.ne\ while magasins is \ma.ɡa.zɛ̃\. 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 (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 42471, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

magasiner is recorded at frequency rank #39,387, classified as averb, pronounced \ma.ɡa.zi.ne\. magasins is at rank #3,084, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ma.ɡa.zɛ̃\.

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 42471, this pair ranks #225,368 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of magasiner vs magasins

Shared letters: agimns. Private to "magasiner": er. Private to "magasins": -.

"magasiner" · 9 letters · shape CVCVCVCVC  ·  "magasins" · 8 letters · shape CVCVCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • magasiner ← amgasiner · maagsiner · magaisner · magasienr · magasinerr · magasinner · magasinre · magasnier
  • magasins ← amgasins · maagsins · magaisns · magasinns · magasinss · magasisn · magasnis · magassins

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "magasiner" for "magasins" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "magasiner" is a verb and "magasins" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "magasiner" or "magasins" show up more?
"magasins" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,084 in our French list, against #39,387 for "magasiner". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "magasiner" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "magasins" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #225,368 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "magasiner" and "magasins" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "magasine vs magasiner". 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 #225,368 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