pareillevspareillesWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#5,795
“pareille” frequency rank
#13,441
“pareilles” frequency rank
19236
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature pareille pareilles
Definition Gens de l’état, de la naissance, du caractère de la personne dont il s’agit, ses pairs. Féminin pluriel de pareil.

Same sound, different letters: pareille vs pareilles

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 8 letters. pareille runs 8 letters (CVCVVCCV) against pareilles's 9 (CVCVVCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

8 ch
pareille
9 ch
pareilles

Same sound, different spelling - pareille / pareilles

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: pareille and pareilles carry the same recorded pronunciation, \pa.ʁɛj\. 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) - “pareille” sits inside “pareilles”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 19236, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

pareille is recorded at frequency rank #5,795, classified as anoun, pronounced \pa.ʁɛj\. pareilles is at rank #13,441, tagged as anadj, pronounced \pa.ʁɛj\.

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 19236, this pair ranks #374,269 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of pareille vs pareilles

Shared letters: aeilpr. Private to "pareille": -. Private to "pareilles": s.

"pareille" · 8 letters · shape CVCVVCCV  ·  "pareilles" · 9 letters · shape CVCVVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • pareille ← apreille · paerille · pareile · pareilel · parelile · parielle · parreille · ppareille
  • pareilles ← apreilles · paerilles · pareilels · pareiles · pareilless · pareillse · pareliles · parielles

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "pareille" and "pareilles" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "pareille" is a noun and "pareilles" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "pareille" vs "pareilles" - which ranks higher?
"pareille" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #5,795 in our French list, against #13,441 for "pareilles". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

You've separated the homophone pair "pareille" / "pareilles". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.

  • Full dictionary entry for "pareille" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "pareilles" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #374,269 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "pareille" and "pareilles" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pailles vs pareilles". 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 #374,269 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