membervsmembresWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#47,454
“member” frequency rank
#480
“membres” frequency rank
47934
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature member membres
Definition Membre (élément d’un groupe humain). Pluriel de membre.

Where the eye mixes member and membres

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. member runs 6 letters (CVCCVC) against membres's 7 (CVCCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
member
7 ch
membres

Why the eye confuses member with membres

A purely visual mix-up. member (\ˈmɛm.bɚ\) and membres (\mɑ̃bʁ\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 47934, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

member is recorded at frequency rank #47,454, classified as anoun, pronounced \ˈmɛm.bɚ\. membres is at rank #480, tagged as anoun, pronounced \mɑ̃bʁ\.

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 47934, this pair ranks #182,990 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of member vs membres

Shared letters: bemr. Private to "member": -. Private to "membres": s.

"member" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "membres" · 7 letters · shape CVCCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • member ← emmber · mebmer · membber · memberr · memebr · memmber · mmeber · mmember
  • membres ← emmbres · mebmres · membbres · membress · membrres · membrse · memmbres · memrbes

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "member" for "membres" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\ˈmɛm.bɚ\ versus \mɑ̃bʁ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "member" or "membres"?
"membres" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #480 in our French list, against #47,454 for "member". 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 "member" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "membres" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #182,990 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "member" and "membres" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Meier vs member". 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 #182,990 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