Which to use
“tabac” and “tabacs” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #4,191
- “tabac” frequency rank
- #41,559
- “tabacs” frequency rank
- 45750
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | tabac | tabacs |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Plante herbacée du genre botanique Nicotiana de la famille des Solanacées, originaire des Amériques, qui est cultivée pour ses grandes feuilles dont on extrait le tabac à fumer, priser ou à chiquer. | Pluriel de tabac. |
Same sound, different letters: tabac vs tabacs
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 5 letters.
Ear matches; page differs - tabac and tabacs
This is the hard kind. tabac and tabacs are pronounced identically (\ta.ba\) 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) - “tabac” sits inside “tabacs”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 45750, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
tabac is recorded at frequency rank #4,191, classified as anoun, pronounced \ta.ba\. tabacs is at rank #41,559, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ta.ba\.
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 45750, this pair ranks #200,315 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of tabac vs tabacs
Shared letters: abct. Private to "tabac": -. Private to "tabacs": s.
"tabac" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC · "tabacs" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "tabac" and "tabacs" be used interchangeably?
Frequency check: "tabac" vs "tabacs" - which ranks higher?
What to do next
"tabac" and "tabacs" share a sound, keep the gloss open, then jump to the headword or a nearby trap.
- Full dictionary entry for "tabac" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "tabacs" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #200,315 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "tabac" and "tabacs" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "tabacs vs tatars". 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 #200,315 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.