spontanéevsspontanéesTell them apart

Which to use

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

#15,040
“spontanée” frequency rank
#31,749
“spontanées” frequency rank
46789
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature spontanée spontanées
Definition Féminin singulier de spontané. Féminin pluriel de spontané.

Same sound, different letters: spontanée vs spontanées

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 9 letters. spontanée runs 9 letters (CCVCCVCVV) against spontanées's 10 (CCVCCVCVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

9 ch
spontanée
10 ch
spontanées

Ear matches; page differs - spontanée and spontanées

This is the hard kind. spontanée and spontanées are pronounced identically (\spɔ̃.ta.ne\) 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) - “spontanée” sits inside “spontanées”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 46789, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

spontanée is recorded at frequency rank #15,040, classified as anadj, pronounced \spɔ̃.ta.ne\. spontanées is at rank #31,749, tagged as anadj, pronounced \spɔ̃.ta.ne\.

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 46789, this pair ranks #192,069 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of spontanée vs spontanées

Shared letters: aenopsté. Private to "spontanée": -. Private to "spontanées": -.

"spontanée" · 9 letters · shape CCVCCVCVV  ·  "spontanées" · 10 letters · shape CCVCCVCVVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "spontanée" for "spontanées" ever safe?
No. They are pronounced the same (\spɔ̃.ta.ne\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
In ordinary French text, does "spontanée" or "spontanées" show up more?
"spontanée" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #15,040 in our French list, against #31,749 for "spontanées". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

"spontanée" and "spontanées" share a sound, keep the gloss open, then jump to the headword or a nearby trap.

  • Full dictionary entry for "spontanée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "spontanées" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #192,069 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "spontanée" and "spontanées" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "spontanées vs spontanés". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #192,069 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