pleuvevspleuventWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#44,100
“pleuve” frequency rank
#40,425
“pleuvent” frequency rank
84525
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature pleuve pleuvent
Definition Variante de pleuvoir. Troisième personne du pluriel du présent de l’indicatif de pleuvoir.

Same sound, different letters: pleuve vs pleuvent

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

6 ch
pleuve
8 ch
pleuvent

Ear matches; page differs - pleuve and pleuvent

This is the hard kind. pleuve and pleuvent are pronounced identically (\plœv\) and both work as averb. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “pleuve” sits inside “pleuvent”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 84525, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

pleuve is recorded at frequency rank #44,100, classified as averb, pronounced \plœv\. pleuvent is at rank #40,425, tagged as averb, pronounced \plœv\.

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 84525, this pair ranks #12,849 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of pleuve vs pleuvent

Shared letters: elpuv. Private to "pleuve": -. Private to "pleuvent": nt.

"pleuve" · 6 letters · shape CCVVCV  ·  "pleuvent" · 8 letters · shape CCVVCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • pleuvelpeuve · peluve · pleuev · pleuvve · plevue · plleuve · plueve · ppleuve
  • pleuventlpeuvent · peluvent · pleuevnt · pleuvennt · pleuventt · pleuvetn · pleuvnet · pleuvvent

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "pleuve" and "pleuvent" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are pronounced the same (\plœv\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
Frequency check: "pleuve" vs "pleuvent" - which ranks higher?
"pleuvent" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #40,425 in our French list, against #44,100 for "pleuve". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

"pleuve" and "pleuvent" share a sound, keep the gloss open, then jump to the headword or a nearby trap.

  • Full dictionary entry for "pleuve" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "pleuvent" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #12,849 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "pleuve" and "pleuvent" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pieuvre vs pleuve". 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 #12,849 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