poilue vs poilues, What's the Difference?

Which to use

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

#39,461
“poilue” frequency rank: #49,282
“poilues” frequency rank: 88743
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	poilue	poilues
Definition	Féminin singulier de poilu.	Féminin pluriel de poilu.

Same sound, different letters: poilue vs poilues

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 6 letters. poilue runs 6 letters (CVVCVV) against poilues's 7 (CVVCVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch

poilue

7 ch

poilues

Homophone desk: poilue vs poilues

This is the hard kind. poilue 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 1 extra letter(s) - “poilue” sits inside “poilues”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 88743, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

poilue is recorded at frequency rank #39,461, 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 88743, this pair ranks #6,581 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of poilue vs poilues

Shared letters: eilopu. Private to "poilue": -. Private to "poilues": s.

"poilue" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVV · "poilues" · 7 letters · shape CVVCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

poilue ← opilue · piolue · poileu · poillue · poiule · poliue · ppoilue
poilues ← opilues · piolues · poileus · poillues · poiluess · poiluse · poiules · poliues

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "poilue" and "poilues" be used interchangeably?

No. They are pronounced the same (\pwa.ly\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.

In ordinary French text, does "poilue" or "poilues" show up more?

"poilue" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #39,461 in our French list, against #49,282 for "poilues". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Sound matches; spelling doesn't. Use the exits below to lock the right form or check a cousin pair.

Full dictionary entry for "poilue" 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 #6,581 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"poilue" 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 #6,581 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.