Which to use
“personnel” is an adjective and “personnes” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #947
- “personnel” frequency rank
- #212
- “personnes” frequency rank
- 1159
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | personnel | personnes |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Qui est propre et particulier à chaque personne. | Pluriel de personne. |
Where the eye mixes personnel and personnes
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 8 letters in sequence. personnel and personnes follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCVCCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Look-alike desk: personnel vs personnes
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: personnel is \pɛʁ.sɔ.nɛl\ while personnes is \pɛʁ.sɔn\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by a single letter - l in “personnel” becomes s in “personnes”, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 1159, 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\. personnes is at rank #212, tagged as anoun, pronounced \pɛʁ.sɔn\.
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 1159, this pair ranks #438,522 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of personnel vs personnes
Shared letters: enoprs. Private to "personnel": l. Private to "personnes": -.
"personnel" · 9 letters · shape CVCCVCCVC · "personnes" · 9 letters · shape CVCCVCCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "personnel" and "personnes" be used interchangeably?
Which is more common, "personnel" or "personnes"?
What to do next
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "personnel" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "personnes" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #438,522 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "personnel" and "personnes" 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 #438,522 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.