Which to use
“plainte” and “plaintes” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #2,536
- “plainte” frequency rank
- #6,331
- “plaintes” frequency rank
- 8867
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | plainte | plaintes |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Gémissement ; lamentation. | Pluriel de plainte. |
Same sound, different letters: plainte vs plaintes
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 7 letters.
Ear matches; page differs - plainte and plaintes
This is the hard kind. plainte and plaintes are pronounced identically (\plɛ̃t\) 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) - “plainte” sits inside “plaintes”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 8867, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
plainte is recorded at frequency rank #2,536, classified as anoun, pronounced \plɛ̃t\. 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 8867, this pair ranks #418,601 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of plainte vs plaintes
Shared letters: aeilnpt. Private to "plainte": -. Private to "plaintes": s.
"plainte" · 7 letters · shape CCVVCCV · "plaintes" · 8 letters · shape CCVVCCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "plainte" for "plaintes" ever safe?
Frequency check: "plainte" vs "plaintes" - which ranks higher?
After this comparison
"plainte" and "plaintes" share a sound, keep the gloss open, then jump to the headword or a nearby trap.
- Full dictionary entry for "plainte" 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 #418,601 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "plainte" and "plaintes" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "plaigne vs plainte". 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 #418,601 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.