Which to use
“mirage” and “mirages” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #17,482
- “mirage” frequency rank
- #43,014
- “mirages” frequency rank
- 60496
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | mirage | mirages |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Phénomène dû à l’incurvation des rayons lumineux se réfléchissant sur les couches surchauffées de l’atmosphère voisines du sol et donnant souvent l’impression d’une réflexion sur une grande étendue d’eau. | Pluriel de mirage. |
Same sound, different letters: mirage vs mirages
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 6 letters. mirage runs 6 letters (CVCVCV) against mirages's 7 (CVCVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Same sound, different spelling - mirage / mirages
This is the hard kind. mirage and mirages are pronounced identically (\mi.ʁaʒ\) 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) - “mirage” sits inside “mirages”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 60496, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
mirage is recorded at frequency rank #17,482, classified as anoun, pronounced \mi.ʁaʒ\. mirages is at rank #43,014, tagged as anoun, pronounced \mi.ʁaʒ\.
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 60496, this pair ranks #97,296 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of mirage vs mirages
Shared letters: aegimr. Private to "mirage": -. Private to "mirages": s.
"mirage" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV · "mirages" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "mirage" for "mirages" ever safe?
Frequency check: "mirage" vs "mirages" - which ranks higher?
What to do next
"mirage" and "mirages" share a sound, keep the gloss open, then jump to the headword or a nearby trap.
- Full dictionary entry for "mirage" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "mirages" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #97,296 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "mirage" and "mirages" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "mirages vs mitigés". 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 #97,296 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.