Which to use
“talents” and “talons” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #4,531
- “talents” frequency rank
- #7,906
- “talons” frequency rank
- 12437
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | talents | talons |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Pluriel de talent. | Pluriel de talon. |
Where the eye mixes talents and talons
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. talents runs 7 letters (CVCVCCC) against talons's 6 (CVCVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Why the eye confuses talents with talons
A purely visual mix-up. talents (\ta.lɑ̃\) and talons (\ta.lɔ̃\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 12437, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
talents is recorded at frequency rank #4,531, classified as anoun, pronounced \ta.lɑ̃\. talons is at rank #7,906, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ta.lɔ̃\.
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 12437, this pair ranks #405,282 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of talents vs talons
Shared letters: alnst. Private to "talents": e. Private to "talons": o.
"talents" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCCC · "talons" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "talents" for "talons" ever safe?
Which is more common, "talents" or "talons"?
After this comparison
Eye-level mix-up between "talents" and "talons" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "talents" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "talons" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #405,282 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "talents" and "talons" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "talons vs thons". 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 #405,282 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.