mongolvsmongolesWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#31,141
“mongol” frequency rank
#39,900
“mongoles” frequency rank
71041
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature mongol mongoles
Definition Qui a rapport avec la Mongolie, les Mongols, la langue mongole. Féminin pluriel de mongol.

Same sound, different letters: mongol vs mongoles

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 6 letters.

6 ch
mongol
8 ch
mongoles

Ear matches; page differs - mongol and mongoles

This is the hard kind. mongol and mongoles are pronounced identically (\mɔ̃.ɡɔl\) 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 2 extra letter(s) - “mongol” sits inside “mongoles”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 71041, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

mongol is recorded at frequency rank #31,141, classified as anadj, pronounced \mɔ̃.ɡɔl\. mongoles is at rank #39,900, tagged as anadj, pronounced \mɔ̃.ɡɔl\.

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 71041, this pair ranks #49,022 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of mongol vs mongoles

Shared letters: glmno. Private to "mongol": -. Private to "mongoles": es.

"mongol" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "mongoles" · 8 letters · shape CVCCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • mongolmmongol · mnogol · mognol · monggol · monglo · mongoll · monngol · monogl
  • mongolesmmongoles · mnogoles · mognoles · monggoles · mongloes · mongoels · mongoless · mongolles

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "mongol" and "mongoles" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are pronounced the same (\mɔ̃.ɡɔl\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
In ordinary French text, does "mongol" or "mongoles" show up more?
"mongol" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #31,141 in our French list, against #39,900 for "mongoles". 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 "mongol" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "mongoles" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #49,022 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "mongol" and "mongoles" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "mondo vs mongol". 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 #49,022 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