premièresvspremiersTell them apart

Which to use

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

#949
“premières” frequency rank
#649
“premiers” frequency rank
1598
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature premières premiers
Definition Féminin pluriel de premier. Masculin pluriel de premier.

Where the eye mixes premières and premiers

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 7 letters in sequence. premières runs 9 letters (CCVCVVCVC) against premiers's 8 (CCVCVVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

9 ch
premières
8 ch
premiers

Look-alike desk: premières vs premiers

A purely visual mix-up. premières (\pʁə.mjɛʁ\) and premiers (\pʁə.mje\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 1598, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

premières is recorded at frequency rank #949, classified as anadj, pronounced \pʁə.mjɛʁ\. premiers is at rank #649, tagged as anadj, pronounced \pʁə.mje\.

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 1598, this pair ranks #437,753 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of premières vs premiers

Shared letters: eimprs. Private to "premières": è. Private to "premiers": -.

"premières" · 9 letters · shape CCVCVVCVC  ·  "premiers" · 8 letters · shape CCVCVVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • premiers ← permiers · ppremiers · preimers · premeirs · premierrs · premierss · premiesr · premires

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "premières" and "premiers" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\pʁə.mjɛʁ\ versus \pʁə.mje\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "premières" or "premiers"?
"premiers" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #649 in our French list, against #949 for "premières". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "premières" and "premiers" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "premières" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "premiers" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #437,753 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "premières" and "premiers" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Pamiers vs premiers". 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 #437,753 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