Which to use
“friend” and “friends” are a confusable Portuguese pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #12,896
- “friend” frequency rank
- #7,029
- “friends” frequency rank
- 19925
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | friend | friends |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | amigo; amiga | plural de friend |
Where the eye mixes friend and friends
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence. friend runs 6 letters (CCVVCC) against friends's 7 (CCVVCCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Visual trap between friend and friends
A purely visual mix-up. friend (/frɛnd/) and friends (/fɹɛn(d)z/) 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 extra letter(s) - “friend” sits inside “friends”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 19925, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
friend is recorded at frequency rank #12,896, classified as anoun, pronounced /frɛnd/. friends is at rank #7,029, tagged as anoun, pronounced /fɹɛn(d)z/.
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 19925, this pair ranks #50,700 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of friend vs friends
Shared letters: definr. Private to "friend": -. Private to "friends": s.
"friend" · 6 letters · shape CCVVCC · "friends" · 7 letters · shape CCVVCCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "friend" for "friends" ever safe?
Frequency check: "friend" vs "friends" - which ranks higher?
After this comparison
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "friend" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "friends" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #50,700 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "friend" and "friends" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "find vs friend". 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 #50,700 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.