Which to use
“adult” and “adultes” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #37,152
- “adult” frequency rank
- #2,977
- “adultes” frequency rank
- 40129
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | adult | adultes |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Adulte. | Pluriel de adulte. |
Where the eye mixes adult and adultes
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. adult runs 5 letters (VCVCC) against adultes's 7 (VCVCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Look-alike desk: adult vs adultes
A purely visual mix-up. adult (\aˈdʊlt\) and adultes (\a.dylt\) 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 2 extra letter(s) - “adult” sits inside “adultes”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 40129, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
adult is recorded at frequency rank #37,152, classified as anadj, pronounced \aˈdʊlt\. adultes is at rank #2,977, tagged as anadj, pronounced \a.dylt\.
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 40129, this pair ranks #242,819 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of adult vs adultes
Shared letters: adltu. Private to "adult": -. Private to "adultes": es.
"adult" · 5 letters · shape VCVCC · "adultes" · 7 letters · shape VCVCCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "adult" and "adultes" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Which is more common, "adult" or "adultes"?
What to do next
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "adult" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "adultes" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #242,819 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "adult" and "adultes" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "adulé vs adult". 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 #242,819 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.