amicalvsamicaleWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: amical is a adjective, amicale is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#7,519
“amical” frequency rank
#10,987
“amicale” frequency rank
18506
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature amical amicale
Definition Qui fait preuve d’amitié. Association d’entraide.

Same sound, different letters: amical vs amicale

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 6 letters. amical runs 6 letters (VCVCVC) against amicale's 7 (VCVCVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
amical
7 ch
amicale

Same sound, different spelling - amical / amicale

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: amical and amicale carry the same recorded pronunciation, \a.mi.kal\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is anadjective, the other anoun, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “amical” sits inside “amicale”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 18506, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

amical is recorded at frequency rank #7,519, classified as anadj, pronounced \a.mi.kal\. amicale is at rank #10,987, tagged as anoun, pronounced \a.mi.kal\.

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 18506, this pair ranks #377,971 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of amical vs amicale

Shared letters: acilm. Private to "amical": -. Private to "amicale": e.

"amical" · 6 letters · shape VCVCVC  ·  "amicale" · 7 letters · shape VCVCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • amical ← aimcal · amcial · amiacl · amicall · amiccal · amicla · ammical · maical
  • amicale ← aimcale · amciale · amiacle · amicael · amicalle · amiccale · amiclae · ammicale

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "amical" for "amicale" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "amical" is an adjective and "amicale" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "amical" or "amicale" show up more?
"amical" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #7,519 in our French list, against #10,987 for "amicale". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

You've separated the homophone pair "amical" / "amicale". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.

  • Full dictionary entry for "amical" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "amicale" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #377,971 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "amical" and "amicale" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "amical vs Amiel". 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 #377,971 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