ordinairevsordinairesWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#3,629
“ordinaire” frequency rank
#8,591
“ordinaires” frequency rank
12220
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature ordinaire ordinaires
Definition Commun ; habituel. Pluriel de ordinaire.

Same sound, different letters: ordinaire vs ordinaires

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 9 letters. ordinaire runs 9 letters (VCCVCVVCV) against ordinaires's 10 (VCCVCVVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

9 ch
ordinaire
10 ch
ordinaires

Same sound, different spelling - ordinaire / ordinaires

This is the hard kind. ordinaire and ordinaires are pronounced identically (\ɔʁ.di.nɛʁ\) 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) - “ordinaire” sits inside “ordinaires”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 12220, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ordinaire is recorded at frequency rank #3,629, classified as anadj, pronounced \ɔʁ.di.nɛʁ\. ordinaires is at rank #8,591, tagged as anadj, pronounced \ɔʁ.di.nɛʁ\.

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 12220, this pair ranks #406,117 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of ordinaire vs ordinaires

Shared letters: adeinor. Private to "ordinaire": -. Private to "ordinaires": s.

"ordinaire" · 9 letters · shape VCCVCVVCV  ·  "ordinaires" · 10 letters · shape VCCVCVVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • ordinaire ← odrinaire · orddinaire · ordianire · ordinaier · ordinairre · ordinarie · ordiniare · ordinnaire
  • ordinaires ← odrinaires · orddinaires · ordianires · ordinaiers · ordinairess · ordinairres · ordinairse · ordinaries

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "ordinaire" and "ordinaires" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are pronounced the same (\ɔʁ.di.nɛʁ\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
In ordinary French text, does "ordinaire" or "ordinaires" show up more?
"ordinaire" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,629 in our French list, against #8,591 for "ordinaires". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "ordinaire" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "ordinaires" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #406,117 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "ordinaire" and "ordinaires" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ordinaires vs originaires". 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 #406,117 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