Which to use
“marchand” and “marchands” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #4,956
- “marchand” frequency rank
- #6,847
- “marchands” frequency rank
- 11803
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | marchand | marchands |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Propre au commerce, qui a rapport au commerce. | Masculin pluriel de marchand. |
Same sound, different letters: marchand vs marchands
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 8 letters. marchand runs 8 letters (CVCCCVCC) against marchands's 9 (CVCCCVCCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Ear matches; page differs - marchand and marchands
This is the hard kind. marchand and marchands are pronounced identically (\maʁ.ʃɑ̃\) 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) - “marchand” sits inside “marchands”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 11803, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
marchand is recorded at frequency rank #4,956, classified as anadj, pronounced \maʁ.ʃɑ̃\. marchands is at rank #6,847, tagged as anadj, pronounced \maʁ.ʃɑ̃\.
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 11803, this pair ranks #407,728 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of marchand vs marchands
Shared letters: acdhmnr. Private to "marchand": -. Private to "marchands": s.
"marchand" · 8 letters · shape CVCCCVCC · "marchands" · 9 letters · shape CVCCCVCCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "marchand" and "marchands" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "marchand" or "marchands" show up more?
What to do next
You've separated the homophone pair "marchand" / "marchands". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.
- Full dictionary entry for "marchand" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "marchands" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #407,728 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "marchand" and "marchands" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "marcha vs marchand". 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 #407,728 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.