plaidévsplaireTell them apart

Which to use

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

#22,650
“plaidé” frequency rank
#5,168
“plaire” frequency rank
27818
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature plaidé plaire
Definition Participe passé masculin singulier de plaider. Agréer ; être agréable.

Where the eye mixes plaidé and plaire

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. plaidé and plaire follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CCVVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

6 ch
plaidé
6 ch
plaire

Visual trap between plaidé and plaire

A purely visual mix-up. plaidé (\ple.de\) and plaire (\plɛʁ\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 27818, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

plaidé is recorded at frequency rank #22,650, classified as averb, pronounced \ple.de\. plaire is at rank #5,168, tagged as averb, pronounced \plɛʁ\.

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 27818, this pair ranks #326,586 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of plaidé vs plaire

Shared letters: ailp. Private to "plaidé": dé. Private to "plaire": er.

"plaidé" · 6 letters · shape CCVVCV  ·  "plaire" · 6 letters · shape CCVVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • plaire ← lpaire · palire · plaier · plairre · plarie · pliare · pllaire · pplaire

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "plaidé" and "plaire" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\ple.de\ versus \plɛʁ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "plaidé" or "plaire"?
"plaire" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #5,168 in our French list, against #22,650 for "plaidé". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "plaidé" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "plaire" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #326,586 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "plaidé" and "plaire" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "plaidé vs plaigne". 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 #326,586 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