opaquevsopaquesTell them apart

Which to use

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

#16,689
“opaque” frequency rank
#31,159
“opaques” frequency rank
47848
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature opaque opaques
Definition Qui n’est pas transparent, qui ne laisse pas passer la lumière. Pluriel de opaque.

Same sound, different letters: opaque vs opaques

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 6 letters.

6 ch
opaque
7 ch
opaques

Ear matches; page differs - opaque and opaques

This is the hard kind. opaque and opaques are pronounced identically (\ɔ.pak\) and both work as anadjective. 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) - “opaque” sits inside “opaques”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 47848, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

opaque is recorded at frequency rank #16,689, classified as anadj, pronounced \ɔ.pak\. opaques is at rank #31,159, tagged as anadj, pronounced \ɔ.pak\.

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 47848, this pair ranks #183,671 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of opaque vs opaques

Shared letters: aeopqu. Private to "opaque": -. Private to "opaques": s.

"opaque" · 6 letters · shape VCVCVV  ·  "opaques" · 7 letters · shape VCVCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • opaqueoapque · opaqeu · opaqque · opauqe · oppaque · opqaue · poaque
  • opaquesoapques · opaqeus · opaqques · opaquess · opaquse · opauqes · oppaques · opqaues

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "opaque" and "opaques" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are pronounced the same (\ɔ.pak\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
Frequency check: "opaque" vs "opaques" - which ranks higher?
"opaque" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #16,689 in our French list, against #31,159 for "opaques". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "opaque" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "opaques" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #183,671 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "opaque" and "opaques" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "opaques vs orques". 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 #183,671 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