Which to use
“plaine” and “plaintes” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #5,907
- “plaine” frequency rank
- #6,331
- “plaintes” frequency rank
- 12238
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | plaine | plaintes |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Espace géographique caractérisé par une surface plane, avec des pentes relativement faibles. | Pluriel de plainte. |
Where the eye mixes plaine and plaintes
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence.
Visual trap between plaine and plaintes
A purely visual mix-up. plaine (\plɛn\) and plaintes (\plɛ̃t\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 12238, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
plaine is recorded at frequency rank #5,907, classified as anoun, pronounced \plɛn\. plaintes is at rank #6,331, tagged as anoun, pronounced \plɛ̃t\.
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 12238, this pair ranks #406,066 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of plaine vs plaintes
Shared letters: aeilnp. Private to "plaine": -. Private to "plaintes": st.
"plaine" · 6 letters · shape CCVVCV · "plaintes" · 8 letters · shape CCVVCCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "plaine" and "plaintes" be used interchangeably?
In ordinary French text, does "plaine" or "plaintes" show up more?
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 "plaine" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "plaintes" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #406,066 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "plaine" and "plaintes" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "plaigne vs plaine". 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 #406,066 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.