vaillancevsvaillantsConfusable pair

Quick tell: vaillance is a noun, vaillants is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“vaillance” is a noun and “vaillants” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#47,671
“vaillance” frequency rank
#35,766
“vaillants” frequency rank
83437
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature vaillance vaillants
Definition Courage ; bravoure. Masculin pluriel de vaillant.

Where the eye mixes vaillance and vaillants

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 7 letters in sequence.

9 ch
vaillance
9 ch
vaillants

Why the eye confuses vaillance with vaillants

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: vaillance is \va.jɑ̃s\ while vaillants is \va.jɑ̃\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 83437, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

vaillance is recorded at frequency rank #47,671, classified as anoun, pronounced \va.jɑ̃s\. vaillants is at rank #35,766, tagged as anadj, pronounced \va.jɑ̃\.

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 83437, this pair ranks #14,841 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of vaillance vs vaillants

Shared letters: ailnv. Private to "vaillance": ce. Private to "vaillants": st.

"vaillance" · 9 letters · shape CVVCCVCCV  ·  "vaillants" · 9 letters · shape CVVCCVCCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • vaillanceavillance · vailalnce · vailance · vaillacne · vaillancce · vaillanec · vaillannce · vaillnace
  • vaillantsavillants · vailalnts · vailants · vaillannts · vaillanst · vaillantss · vaillantts · vaillatns

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "vaillance" for "vaillants" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "vaillance" is a noun and "vaillants" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "vaillance" vs "vaillants" - which ranks higher?
"vaillants" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #35,766 in our French list, against #47,671 for "vaillance". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "vaillance" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "vaillants" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #14,841 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "vaillance" and "vaillants" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "vaillance vs vaillante". 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 #14,841 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