ogivevsogivesWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: ogive is a noun, ogives is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“ogive” is a noun and “ogives” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#34,222
“ogive” frequency rank
#31,158
“ogives” frequency rank
65380
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature ogive ogives
Definition Chacun des arcs qui, en se croisant en X, soutiennent la voûte dans l’architecture gothique. Féminin pluriel de ogif.

Same sound, different letters: ogive vs ogives

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 5 letters.

5 ch
ogive
6 ch
ogives

Homophone desk: ogive vs ogives

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: ogive and ogives carry the same recorded pronunciation, \ɔ.ʒiv\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is anoun, the other anadjective, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “ogive” sits inside “ogives”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 65380, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ogive is recorded at frequency rank #34,222, classified as anoun, pronounced \ɔ.ʒiv\. ogives is at rank #31,158, tagged as anadj, pronounced \ɔ.ʒiv\.

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 65380, this pair ranks #72,645 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of ogive vs ogives

Shared letters: egiov. Private to "ogive": -. Private to "ogives": s.

"ogive" · 5 letters · shape VCVCV  ·  "ogives" · 6 letters · shape VCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • ogivegoive · oggive · ogiev · ogivve · ogvie · oigve
  • ogivesgoives · oggives · ogievs · ogivess · ogivse · ogivves · ogvies · oigves

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "ogive" for "ogives" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "ogive" is a noun and "ogives" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "ogive" or "ogives"?
"ogives" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #31,158 in our French list, against #34,222 for "ogive". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

"ogive" and "ogives" share a sound, keep the gloss open, then jump to the headword or a nearby trap.

  • Full dictionary entry for "ogive" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "ogives" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #72,645 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "ogive" and "ogives" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ogive vs otite". 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 #72,645 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