operationvsopérationsWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#27,164
“operation” frequency rank
#1,603
“opérations” frequency rank
28767
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature operation opérations
Definition Opération, façon d’opérer, de fonctionner. Pluriel de opération.

Letter map: operation vs opérations

Shared letters muted; letters that set operation and opérations apart highlighted. Shared run: 8.

9 ch
operation
10 ch
opérations

Corpus notes: operation and opérations

operation and opérations are indexed as a confusable French pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 28767, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

operation is recorded at frequency rank #27,164, classified as anoun. opérations is at rank #1,603, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ɔ.pe.ʁa.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 28767, this pair ranks #320,844 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of operation vs opérations

Shared letters: ainoprt. Private to "operation": e. Private to "opérations": .

"operation" · 9 letters · shape VCVCVCVVC  ·  "opérations" · 10 letters · shape VCVCVCVVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • operationoepration · opeartion · operaiton · operatino · operationn · operatoin · operattion · operration

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "operation" and "opérations" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They differ by 1 letter(s) in length, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
In ordinary French text, does "operation" or "opérations" show up more?
"opérations" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,603 in our French list, against #27,164 for "operation". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Pair "operation" vs "opérations" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "operation" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "opérations" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #320,844 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • 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 #320,844 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