manquantevsmanquantesWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#31,594
“manquante” frequency rank
#30,697
“manquantes” frequency rank
62291
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature manquante manquantes
Definition Féminin singulier de manquant. Féminin pluriel de manquant.

Same sound, different letters: manquante vs manquantes

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 9 letters. manquante runs 9 letters (CVCCVVCCV) against manquantes's 10 (CVCCVVCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

9 ch
manquante
10 ch
manquantes

Same sound, different spelling - manquante / manquantes

This is the hard kind. manquante and manquantes are pronounced identically (\mɑ̃.kɑ̃t\) and both work as anadjective. 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) - “manquante” sits inside “manquantes”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 62291, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

manquante is recorded at frequency rank #31,594, classified as anadj, pronounced \mɑ̃.kɑ̃t\. manquantes is at rank #30,697, tagged as anadj, pronounced \mɑ̃.kɑ̃t\.

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 62291, this pair ranks #87,883 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of manquante vs manquantes

Shared letters: aemnqtu. Private to "manquante": -. Private to "manquantes": s.

"manquante" · 9 letters · shape CVCCVVCCV  ·  "manquantes" · 10 letters · shape CVCCVVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • manquanteamnquante · mannquante · manqaunte · manqquante · manquanet · manquannte · manquantte · manquatne
  • manquantesamnquantes · mannquantes · manqauntes · manqquantes · manquanets · manquanntes · manquantess · manquantse

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "manquante" and "manquantes" be used interchangeably?
No. They are pronounced the same (\mɑ̃.kɑ̃t\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
Which is more common, "manquante" or "manquantes"?
"manquantes" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #30,697 in our French list, against #31,594 for "manquante". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "manquante" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "manquantes" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #87,883 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "manquante" and "manquantes" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "manquante vs masquant". 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 #87,883 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