merveillevsmerveillesWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#6,413
“merveille” frequency rank
#8,426
“merveilles” frequency rank
14839
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature merveille merveilles
Definition Chose qui cause une grande admiration. Pluriel de merveille.

Same sound, different letters: merveille vs merveilles

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

9 ch
merveille
10 ch
merveilles

Homophone desk: merveille vs merveilles

This is the hard kind. merveille and merveilles are pronounced identically (\mɛʁ.vɛj\) 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) - “merveille” sits inside “merveilles”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 14839, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

merveille is recorded at frequency rank #6,413, classified as anoun, pronounced \mɛʁ.vɛj\. merveilles is at rank #8,426, tagged as anoun, pronounced \mɛʁ.vɛj\.

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 14839, this pair ranks #394,995 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of merveille vs merveilles

Shared letters: eilmrv. Private to "merveille": -. Private to "merveilles": s.

"merveille" · 9 letters · shape CVCCVVCCV  ·  "merveilles" · 10 letters · shape CVCCVVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • merveilleemrveille · mereville · merrveille · merveile · merveilel · mervelile · mervielle · mervveille
  • merveillesemrveilles · merevilles · merrveilles · merveilels · merveiles · merveilless · merveillse · merveliles

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "merveille" and "merveilles" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are pronounced the same (\mɛʁ.vɛj\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
Frequency check: "merveille" vs "merveilles" - which ranks higher?
"merveille" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #6,413 in our French list, against #8,426 for "merveilles". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "merveille" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "merveilles" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #394,995 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "merveille" and "merveilles" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Melville vs merveille". 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 #394,995 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