occurrencevsoccurrencesTell them apart

Which to use

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

#7,469
“occurrence” frequency rank
#36,075
“occurrences” frequency rank
43544
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature occurrence occurrences
Definition Événement, situation étant survenue. Pluriel de occurrence.

Same sound, different letters: occurrence vs occurrences

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 10 letters. occurrence runs 10 letters (VCCVCCVCCV) against occurrences's 11 (VCCVCCVCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

10 ch
occurrence
11 ch
occurrences

Homophone desk: occurrence vs occurrences

This is the hard kind. occurrence and occurrences are pronounced identically (\ɔ.ky.ʁɑ̃s\) 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) - “occurrence” sits inside “occurrences”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 43544, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

occurrence is recorded at frequency rank #7,469, classified as anoun, pronounced \ɔ.ky.ʁɑ̃s\. occurrences is at rank #36,075, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ɔ.ky.ʁɑ̃s\.

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 43544, this pair ranks #217,259 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of occurrence vs occurrences

Shared letters: cenoru. Private to "occurrence": -. Private to "occurrences": s.

"occurrence" · 10 letters · shape VCCVCCVCCV  ·  "occurrences" · 11 letters · shape VCCVCCVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • occurrence ← cocurrence · occrurence · occurernce · occurrecne · occurrencce · occurrenec · occurrennce · occurrnece
  • occurrences ← cocurrences · occrurences · occurences · occurernces · occurrecnes · occurrencces · occurrencess · occurrencse

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "occurrence" for "occurrences" ever safe?
No. They are pronounced the same (\ɔ.ky.ʁɑ̃s\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
Frequency check: "occurrence" vs "occurrences" - which ranks higher?
"occurrence" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #7,469 in our French list, against #36,075 for "occurrences". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "occurrence" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "occurrences" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #217,259 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "occurrence" and "occurrences" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "occurence vs occurrences". 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 #217,259 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