microvsmicrosTell them apart

Which to use

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

#2,683
“micro” frequency rank
#17,766
“micros” frequency rank
20449
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature micro micros
Definition Microphone. Pluriel de micro.

Same sound, different letters: micro vs micros

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 5 letters.

5 ch
micro
6 ch
micros

Homophone desk: micro vs micros

This is the hard kind. micro and micros are pronounced identically (\mi.kʁo\) 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) - “micro” sits inside “micros”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 20449, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

micro is recorded at frequency rank #2,683, classified as anoun, pronounced \mi.kʁo\. micros is at rank #17,766, tagged as anoun, pronounced \mi.kʁo\.

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 20449, this pair ranks #368,204 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of micro vs micros

Shared letters: cimor. Private to "micro": -. Private to "micros": s.

"micro" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "micros" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • microimcro · mciro · miccro · micor · micrro · mirco · mmicro
  • microsimcros · mciros · miccros · micors · micross · micrros · micrso · mircos

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "micro" for "micros" ever safe?
No. They are pronounced the same (\mi.kʁo\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
Frequency check: "micro" vs "micros" - which ranks higher?
"micro" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,683 in our French list, against #17,766 for "micros". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "micro" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "micros" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #368,204 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "micro" and "micros" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "macros vs micros". 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 #368,204 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