Which to use
“seconde” and “secondes” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #677
- “seconde” frequency rank
- #1,378
- “secondes” frequency rank
- 2055
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | seconde | secondes |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Féminin singulier de second. | Féminin pluriel de l’adjectif second. |
Same sound, different letters: seconde vs secondes
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 7 letters.
Ear matches; page differs - seconde and secondes
This is the hard kind. seconde and secondes are pronounced identically (\sə.ɡɔ̃d\) 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) - “seconde” sits inside “secondes”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 2055, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
seconde is recorded at frequency rank #677, classified as anadj, pronounced \sə.ɡɔ̃d\. secondes is at rank #1,378, tagged as anadj, pronounced \sə.ɡɔ̃d\.
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 2055, this pair ranks #436,850 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of seconde vs secondes
Shared letters: cdenos. Private to "seconde": -. Private to "secondes": -.
"seconde" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCCV · "secondes" · 8 letters · shape CVCVCCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "seconde" and "secondes" be used interchangeably?
Which is more common, "seconde" or "secondes"?
What to do next
Sound matches; spelling doesn't. Use the exits below to lock the right form or check a cousin pair.
- Full dictionary entry for "seconde" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "secondes" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #436,850 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "seconde" and "secondes" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "scindé vs seconde". 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 #436,850 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.