occupationvsoccupationsTell them apart

Which to use

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

#3,948
“occupation” frequency rank
#17,775
“occupations” frequency rank
21723
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature occupation occupations
Definition Action d’occuper militairement un pays, une région. Pluriel de occupation.

Where the eye mixes occupation and occupations

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 10 letters in sequence.

10 ch
occupation
11 ch
occupations

Visual trap between occupation and occupations

A purely visual mix-up. occupation (\o.ky.pa.sjɔ̃\) and occupations (\ɔ.ky.pa.sjɔ̃\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “occupation” sits inside “occupations”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 21723, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

occupation is recorded at frequency rank #3,948, classified as anoun, pronounced \o.ky.pa.sjɔ̃\. occupations is at rank #17,775, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ɔ.ky.pa.sjɔ̃\.

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 21723, this pair ranks #361,743 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of occupation vs occupations

Shared letters: acinoptu. Private to "occupation": -. Private to "occupations": s.

"occupation" · 10 letters · shape VCCVCVCVVC  ·  "occupations" · 11 letters · shape VCCVCVCVVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • occupationcocupation · occpuation · occuaption · occupaiton · occupatino · occupationn · occupatoin · occupattion
  • occupationscocupations · occpuations · occuaptions · occupaitons · occupatinos · occupationns · occupationss · occupatiosn

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "occupation" for "occupations" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\o.ky.pa.sjɔ̃\ versus \ɔ.ky.pa.sjɔ̃\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "occupation" vs "occupations" - which ranks higher?
"occupation" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,948 in our French list, against #17,775 for "occupations". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "occupation" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "occupations" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #361,743 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "occupation" and "occupations" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "occultation vs occupation". 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 #361,743 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