Which to use
“poilu” and “poilues” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #22,651
- “poilu” frequency rank
- #49,282
- “poilues” frequency rank
- 71933
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | poilu | poilues |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Qui est velu, couvert de poils. | Féminin pluriel de poilu. |
Same sound, different letters: poilu vs poilues
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 5 letters. poilu runs 5 letters (CVVCV) against poilues's 7 (CVVCVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Same sound, different spelling - poilu / poilues
This is the hard kind. poilu and poilues are pronounced identically (\pwa.ly\) 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 2 extra letter(s) - “poilu” sits inside “poilues”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 71933, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
poilu is recorded at frequency rank #22,651, classified as anadj, pronounced \pwa.ly\. poilues is at rank #49,282, tagged as anadj, pronounced \pwa.ly\.
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 71933, this pair ranks #45,766 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of poilu vs poilues
Shared letters: ilopu. Private to "poilu": -. Private to "poilues": es.
"poilu" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV · "poilues" · 7 letters · shape CVVCVVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "poilu" and "poilues" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "poilu" or "poilues" show up more?
Useful next steps
"poilu" and "poilues" share a sound, keep the gloss open, then jump to the headword or a nearby trap.
- Full dictionary entry for "poilu" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "poilues" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #45,766 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "poilu" and "poilues" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "piqués vs poilues". 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 #45,766 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.