Which to use
“spam” and “spams” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #14,802
- “spam” frequency rank
- #36,599
- “spams” frequency rank
- 51401
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | spam | spams |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Spécialité américaine de viande hachée en conserve, produit de bas de gamme qui servit à l’alimentation des soldats américains au cours de la Seconde Guerre mondiale, et fut abondamment distribué aux populations disetteuses européennes par ces mêmes soldats. | Pluriel de spam. |
Same sound, different letters: spam vs spams
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 4 letters.
Homophone desk: spam vs spams
This is the hard kind. spam and spams are pronounced identically (\spam\) 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) - “spam” sits inside “spams”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 51401, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
spam is recorded at frequency rank #14,802, classified as anoun, pronounced \spam\. spams is at rank #36,599, tagged as anoun, pronounced \spam\.
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 51401, this pair ranks #155,269 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of spam vs spams
Shared letters: amps. Private to "spam": -. Private to "spams": -.
"spam" · 4 letters · shape CCVC · "spams" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "spam" for "spams" ever safe?
Which is more common, "spam" or "spams"?
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 "spam" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "spams" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #155,269 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "spam" and "spams" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "seals vs spams". 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 #155,269 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.