Which to use
“passive” and “passives” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #13,858
- “passive” frequency rank
- #43,591
- “passives” frequency rank
- 57449
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | passive | passives |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Celle qui, dans le coït, est la partenaire réceptive | Pluriel de passive. |
Same sound, different letters: passive vs passives
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 7 letters.
Ear matches; page differs - passive and passives
This is the hard kind. passive and passives are pronounced identically (\pa.siv\) 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) - “passive” sits inside “passives”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 57449, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
passive is recorded at frequency rank #13,858, classified as anoun, pronounced \pa.siv\. passives is at rank #43,591, tagged as anoun, pronounced \pa.siv\.
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 57449, this pair ranks #114,986 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of passive vs passives
Shared letters: aeipsv. Private to "passive": -. Private to "passives": -.
"passive" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCV · "passives" · 8 letters · shape CVCCVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "passive" for "passives" ever safe?
Which is more common, "passive" or "passives"?
After this comparison
Sound matches; spelling doesn't. Use the exits below to lock the right form or check a cousin pair.
- Full dictionary entry for "passive" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "passives" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #114,986 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "passive" and "passives" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "passibles vs passives". 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 #114,986 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.