Which to use
“sombre” and “sombres” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #3,040
- “sombre” frequency rank
- #7,378
- “sombres” frequency rank
- 10418
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | sombre | sombres |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Qui est peu éclairé ; qui reçoit peu de lumière ; qui est obscur. | Pluriel de sombre. |
Same sound, different letters: sombre vs sombres
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 6 letters. sombre runs 6 letters (CVCCCV) against sombres's 7 (CVCCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Ear matches; page differs - sombre and sombres
This is the hard kind. sombre and sombres are pronounced identically (\sɔ̃bʁ\) 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) - “sombre” sits inside “sombres”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 10418, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
sombre is recorded at frequency rank #3,040, classified as anadj, pronounced \sɔ̃bʁ\. sombres is at rank #7,378, tagged as anadj, pronounced \sɔ̃bʁ\.
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 10418, this pair ranks #413,078 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of sombre vs sombres
Shared letters: bemors. Private to "sombre": -. Private to "sombres": -.
"sombre" · 6 letters · shape CVCCCV · "sombres" · 7 letters · shape CVCCCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "sombre" and "sombres" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "sombre" or "sombres" show up more?
After this comparison
Sound matches; spelling doesn't. Use the exits below to lock the right form or check a cousin pair.
- Full dictionary entry for "sombre" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "sombres" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #413,078 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "sombre" and "sombres" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "sofres vs sombres". 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 #413,078 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.