préceptevspréceptesWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#47,536
“précepte” frequency rank
#22,382
“préceptes” frequency rank
69918
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature précepte préceptes
Definition Règle ; leçon ; enseignement. Pluriel de précepte.

Same sound, different letters: précepte vs préceptes

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 8 letters. précepte runs 8 letters (CCVCVCCV) against préceptes's 9 (CCVCVCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

8 ch
précepte
9 ch
préceptes

Homophone desk: précepte vs préceptes

This is the hard kind. précepte and préceptes are pronounced identically (\pʁe.sɛpt\) and both work as anoun. 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) - “précepte” sits inside “préceptes”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 69918, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

précepte is recorded at frequency rank #47,536, classified as anoun, pronounced \pʁe.sɛpt\. préceptes is at rank #22,382, tagged as anoun, pronounced \pʁe.sɛpt\.

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 69918, this pair ranks #53,326 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of précepte vs préceptes

Shared letters: ceprté. Private to "précepte": -. Private to "préceptes": s.

"précepte" · 8 letters · shape CCVCVCCV  ·  "préceptes" · 9 letters · shape CCVCVCCVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "précepte" for "préceptes" ever safe?
No. They are pronounced the same (\pʁe.sɛpt\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
Frequency check: "précepte" vs "préceptes" - which ranks higher?
"préceptes" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #22,382 in our French list, against #47,536 for "précepte". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "précepte" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "préceptes" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #53,326 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "précepte" and "préceptes" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "précepte vs précité". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #53,326 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