Which to use
“niveau” and “niveaux” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #317
- “niveau” frequency rank
- #2,686
- “niveaux” frequency rank
- 3003
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | niveau | niveaux |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Outil servant à vérifier l’horizontalité d’une surface, d’un sol. | Pluriel de niveau. |
Same sound, different letters: niveau vs niveaux
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 6 letters. niveau runs 6 letters (CVCVVV) against niveaux's 7 (CVCVVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Same sound, different spelling - niveau / niveaux
This is the hard kind. niveau and niveaux are pronounced identically (\ni.vo\) 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) - “niveau” sits inside “niveaux”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 3003, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
niveau is recorded at frequency rank #317, classified as anoun, pronounced \ni.vo\. niveaux is at rank #2,686, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ni.vo\.
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 3003, this pair ranks #435,021 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of niveau vs niveaux
Shared letters: aeinuv. Private to "niveau": -. Private to "niveaux": x.
"niveau" · 6 letters · shape CVCVVV · "niveaux" · 7 letters · shape CVCVVVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "niveau" and "niveaux" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Frequency check: "niveau" vs "niveaux" - which ranks higher?
After this comparison
Sound matches; spelling doesn't. Use the exits below to lock the right form or check a cousin pair.
- Full dictionary entry for "niveau" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "niveaux" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #435,021 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "niveau" and "niveaux" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Nadeau vs niveau". 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 #435,021 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.