pigmentvspigmentsWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

“pigment” and “pigments” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#27,909
“pigment” frequency rank
#25,766
“pigments” frequency rank
53675
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature pigment pigments
Definition Substance colorante généralement insoluble et se fixant à la surface du support sur lequel on l’applique. Pluriel de pigment.

Same sound, different letters: pigment vs pigments

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 7 letters. pigment runs 7 letters (CVCCVCC) against pigments's 8 (CVCCVCCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

7 ch
pigment
8 ch
pigments

Same sound, different spelling - pigment / pigments

This is the hard kind. pigment and pigments are pronounced identically (\piɡ.mɑ̃\) 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) - “pigment” sits inside “pigments”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 53675, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

pigment is recorded at frequency rank #27,909, classified as anoun, pronounced \piɡ.mɑ̃\. pigments is at rank #25,766, tagged as anoun, pronounced \piɡ.mɑ̃\.

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 53675, this pair ranks #139,176 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of pigment vs pigments

Shared letters: egimnpt. Private to "pigment": -. Private to "pigments": s.

"pigment" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCC  ·  "pigments" · 8 letters · shape CVCCVCCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • pigmentipgment · pgiment · pigemnt · piggment · pigmennt · pigmentt · pigmetn · pigmment
  • pigmentsipgments · pgiments · pigemnts · piggments · pigmennts · pigmenst · pigmentss · pigmentts

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "pigment" and "pigments" be used interchangeably?
No. They are pronounced the same (\piɡ.mɑ̃\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
Frequency check: "pigment" vs "pigments" - which ranks higher?
"pigments" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #25,766 in our French list, against #27,909 for "pigment". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

"pigment" and "pigments" share a sound, keep the gloss open, then jump to the headword or a nearby trap.

  • Full dictionary entry for "pigment" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "pigments" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #139,176 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "pigment" and "pigments" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pigment vs pillent". 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 #139,176 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