pleinevspleinesWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#1,146
“pleine” frequency rank
#8,908
“pleines” frequency rank
10054
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature pleine pleines
Definition Féminin singulier de plein. Féminin pluriel de plein.

Same sound, different letters: pleine vs pleines

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 6 letters.

6 ch
pleine
7 ch
pleines

Homophone desk: pleine vs pleines

This is the hard kind. pleine and pleines are pronounced identically (\plɛn\) and both work as anadjective. 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) - “pleine” sits inside “pleines”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 10054, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

pleine is recorded at frequency rank #1,146, classified as anadj, pronounced \plɛn\. pleines is at rank #8,908, tagged as anadj, pronounced \plɛn\.

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 10054, this pair ranks #414,383 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of pleine vs pleines

Shared letters: eilnp. Private to "pleine": -. Private to "pleines": s.

"pleine" · 6 letters · shape CCVVCV  ·  "pleines" · 7 letters · shape CCVVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • pleinelpeine · peline · pleien · pleinne · plenie · pliene · plleine · ppleine
  • pleineslpeines · pelines · pleiens · pleiness · pleinnes · pleinse · plenies · plienes

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "pleine" and "pleines" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are pronounced the same (\plɛn\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
Frequency check: "pleine" vs "pleines" - which ranks higher?
"pleine" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,146 in our French list, against #8,908 for "pleines". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

You've separated the homophone pair "pleine" / "pleines". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.

  • Full dictionary entry for "pleine" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "pleines" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #414,383 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "pleine" and "pleines" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "peins vs pleines". 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 #414,383 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