Which to use
“personne” is a noun and “personnels” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #149
- “personne” frequency rank
- #3,631
- “personnels” frequency rank
- 3780
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | personne | personnels |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Être humain considéré en tant qu’individu. | Masculin pluriel de personnel. |
Where the eye mixes personne and personnels
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 8 letters in sequence. personne runs 8 letters (CVCCVCCV) against personnels's 10 (CVCCVCCVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Visual trap between personne and personnels
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: personne is \pɛʁ.sɔn\ while personnels is \pɛʁ.sɔ.nɛl\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “personne” sits inside “personnels”, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 3780, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
personne is recorded at frequency rank #149, classified as anoun, pronounced \pɛʁ.sɔn\. personnels is at rank #3,631, tagged as anadj, pronounced \pɛʁ.sɔ.nɛl\.
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 3780, this pair ranks #433,207 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of personne vs personnels
Shared letters: enoprs. Private to "personne": -. Private to "personnels": l.
"personne" · 8 letters · shape CVCCVCCV · "personnels" · 10 letters · shape CVCCVCCVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
- personne ← eprsonne · perosnne · perrsonne · persnone · persone · personen · perssonne · pesronne
- personnels ← eprsonnels · perosnnels · perrsonnels · persnonels · personels · personenls · personnells · personnelss
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "personne" for "personnels" ever safe?
Which is more common, "personne" or "personnels"?
Useful next steps
Eye-level mix-up between "personne" and "personnels" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "personne" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "personnels" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #433,207 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "personne" and "personnels" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "persane vs personne". 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 #433,207 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.