manquevsmanquesWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#584
“manque” frequency rank
#8,882
“manques” frequency rank
9466
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature manque manques
Definition Absence, défaut, fait de manquer. Pluriel de manque.

Same sound, different letters: manque vs manques

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 6 letters.

6 ch
manque
7 ch
manques

Homophone desk: manque vs manques

This is the hard kind. manque and manques are pronounced identically (\mɑ̃k\) 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) - “manque” sits inside “manques”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 9466, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

manque is recorded at frequency rank #584, classified as anoun, pronounced \mɑ̃k\. manques is at rank #8,882, tagged as anoun, pronounced \mɑ̃k\.

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 9466, this pair ranks #416,541 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of manque vs manques

Shared letters: aemnqu. Private to "manque": -. Private to "manques": s.

"manque" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVV  ·  "manques" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • manqueamnque · mannque · manqeu · manqque · manuqe · maqnue · mmanque · mnaque
  • manquesamnques · mannques · manqeus · manqques · manquess · manquse · manuqes · maqnues

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "manque" for "manques" ever safe?
No. They are pronounced the same (\mɑ̃k\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
Frequency check: "manque" vs "manques" - which ranks higher?
"manque" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #584 in our French list, against #8,882 for "manques". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "manque" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "manques" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #416,541 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "manque" and "manques" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "maniaques vs manques". 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 #416,541 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