Which to use
“oiseau” and “oiseaux” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #3,781
- “oiseau” frequency rank
- #2,940
- “oiseaux” frequency rank
- 6721
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | oiseau | oiseaux |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Animal vertébré théropode, à deux pattes et deux ailes, ovipare, homéotherme, au corps couvert de plumes et qui possède un bec corné dépourvu de dents. | Pluriel de oiseau. |
Same sound, different letters: oiseau vs oiseaux
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 6 letters.
Homophone desk: oiseau vs oiseaux
This is the hard kind. oiseau and oiseaux are pronounced identically (\wa.zo\) 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) - “oiseau” sits inside “oiseaux”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 6721, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
oiseau is recorded at frequency rank #3,781, classified as anoun, pronounced \wa.zo\. oiseaux is at rank #2,940, tagged as anoun, pronounced \wa.zo\.
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 6721, this pair ranks #425,421 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of oiseau vs oiseaux
Shared letters: aeiosu. Private to "oiseau": -. Private to "oiseaux": x.
"oiseau" · 6 letters · shape VVCVVV · "oiseaux" · 7 letters · shape VVCVVVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "oiseau" and "oiseaux" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "oiseau" or "oiseaux" show up more?
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 "oiseau" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "oiseaux" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #425,421 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "oiseau" and "oiseaux" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "oiseaux vs osseux". 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 #425,421 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.