PhilippinesvsphilippinsWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: Philippines is a name, philippins is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“Philippines” is a name and “philippins” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#8,906
“Philippines” frequency rank
#43,064
“philippins” frequency rank
51970
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Philippines philippins
Definition Archipel du Sud-Est de l’Asie, bordé à l’est par la mer des Philippines, à l’ouest par la mer de Chine méridionale, au sud-ouest par la mer de Sulu et au sud par la mer de Célèbes. Pluriel de philippin.

Where the eye mixes Philippines and philippins

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 10 letters in sequence.

11 ch
Philippines
10 ch
philippins

Look-alike desk: Philippines vs philippins

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: Philippines is \fi.li.pin\ while philippins is \fi.li.pɛ̃\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (name vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 51970, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Philippines is recorded at frequency rank #8,906, classified as aname, pronounced \fi.li.pin\. philippins is at rank #43,064, tagged as anadj, pronounced \fi.li.pɛ̃\.

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 51970, this pair ranks #151,096 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of Philippines vs philippins

Shared letters: hilnps. Private to "Philippines": e. Private to "philippins": -.

"Philippines" · 11 letters · shape CCVCVCCVCVC  ·  "philippins" · 10 letters · shape CCVCVCCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Philippineshpilippines · phhilippines · phiilppines · philipines · philipipnes · philippiens · philippiness · philippinnes
  • philippinshpilippins · phhilippins · phiilppins · philipins · philipipns · philippinns · philippinss · philippisn

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "Philippines" for "philippins" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Philippines" is a name and "philippins" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "Philippines" or "philippins" show up more?
"Philippines" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #8,906 in our French list, against #43,064 for "philippins". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Philippines" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "philippins" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #151,096 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Philippines" and "philippins" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "philippin vs philippins". 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 #151,096 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