Which to use
“personnel” and “personnels” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #947
- “personnel” frequency rank
- #3,631
- “personnels” frequency rank
- 4578
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | personnel | personnels |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Qui est propre et particulier à chaque personne. | Masculin pluriel de personnel. |
Same sound, different letters: personnel vs personnels
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 9 letters. personnel runs 9 letters (CVCCVCCVC) against personnels's 10 (CVCCVCCVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Ear matches; page differs - personnel and personnels
This is the hard kind. personnel and personnels are pronounced identically (\pɛʁ.sɔ.nɛl\) 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) - “personnel” sits inside “personnels”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 4578, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
personnel is recorded at frequency rank #947, classified as anadj, pronounced \pɛʁ.sɔ.nɛl\. 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 4578, this pair ranks #431,249 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of personnel vs personnels
Shared letters: elnoprs. Private to "personnel": -. Private to "personnels": -.
"personnel" · 9 letters · shape CVCCVCCVC · "personnels" · 10 letters · shape CVCCVCCVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
- personnel ← eprsonnel · perosnnel · perrsonnel · persnonel · personel · personenl · personnell · personnle
- personnels ← eprsonnels · perosnnels · perrsonnels · persnonels · personels · personenls · personnells · personnelss
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "personnel" and "personnels" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "personnel" or "personnels" show up more?
Useful next steps
You've separated the homophone pair "personnel" / "personnels". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.
- Full dictionary entry for "personnel" 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 #431,249 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "personnel" and "personnels" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Péronne vs personnel". 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 #431,249 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.