prisonnièrevsprisonnièresWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: prisonnière is a noun, prisonnières is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“prisonnière” is a noun and “prisonnières” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#19,113
“prisonnière” frequency rank
#37,491
“prisonnières” frequency rank
56604
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature prisonnière prisonnières
Definition Celle qui est arrêtée pour être mise en prison, ou qui y est détenue. Féminin pluriel de prisonnier.

Same sound, different letters: prisonnière vs prisonnières

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 11 letters. prisonnière runs 11 letters (CCVCVCCVVCV) against prisonnières's 12 (CCVCVCCVVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

11 ch
prisonnière
12 ch
prisonnières

Ear matches; page differs - prisonnière and prisonnières

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: prisonnière and prisonnières carry the same recorded pronunciation, \pʁi.zɔ.njɛʁ\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is anoun, the other anadjective, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “prisonnière” sits inside “prisonnières”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 56604, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

prisonnière is recorded at frequency rank #19,113, classified as anoun, pronounced \pʁi.zɔ.njɛʁ\. prisonnières is at rank #37,491, tagged as anadj, pronounced \pʁi.zɔ.njɛʁ\.

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 56604, this pair ranks #120,042 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of prisonnière vs prisonnières

Shared letters: einoprsè. Private to "prisonnière": -. Private to "prisonnières": -.

"prisonnière" · 11 letters · shape CCVCVCCVVCV  ·  "prisonnières" · 12 letters · shape CCVCVCCVVCVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "prisonnière" and "prisonnières" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "prisonnière" is a noun and "prisonnières" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "prisonnière" vs "prisonnières" - which ranks higher?
"prisonnière" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #19,113 in our French list, against #37,491 for "prisonnières". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

You've separated the homophone pair "prisonnière" / "prisonnières". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.

  • Full dictionary entry for "prisonnière" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "prisonnières" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #120,042 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "prisonnière" and "prisonnières" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pionnières vs prisonnières". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #120,042 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