planchesvsplantéesTell them apart

Quick tell: planches is a noun, plantées is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“planches” is a noun and “plantées” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#6,641
“planches” frequency rank
#31,185
“plantées” frequency rank
37826
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature planches plantées
Definition Pluriel de planche. Féminin pluriel de planté.

Where the eye mixes planches and plantées

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence. planches (CCVCCCVC) and plantées (CCVCCVVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

8 ch
planches
8 ch
plantées

Why the eye confuses planches with plantées

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: planches is \plɑ̃ʃ\ while plantées is \plɑ̃.te\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 37826, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

planches is recorded at frequency rank #6,641, classified as anoun, pronounced \plɑ̃ʃ\. plantées is at rank #31,185, tagged as anadj, pronounced \plɑ̃.te\.

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 37826, this pair ranks #259,686 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of planches vs plantées

Shared letters: aelnps. Private to "planches": ch. Private to "plantées": té.

"planches" · 8 letters · shape CCVCCCVC  ·  "plantées" · 8 letters · shape CCVCCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • planches ← lpanches · palnches · placnhes · plancches · plancehs · planchess · planchhes · planchse

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "planches" for "plantées" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "planches" is a noun and "plantées" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "planches" or "plantées" show up more?
"planches" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #6,641 in our French list, against #31,185 for "plantées". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "planches" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "plantées" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #259,686 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "planches" and "plantées" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "planqués vs plantées". 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 #259,686 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