animalsvsanimauxConfusable pair

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

Which to use

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

#37,653
“animals” frequency rank
#1,132
“animaux” frequency rank
38785
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature animals animaux
Definition Pluriel de animal. Masculin pluriel de animal. Qui a trait aux animaux.

Where the eye mixes animals and animaux

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence.

7 ch
animals
7 ch
animaux

Look-alike desk: animals vs animaux

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: animals is \ˈæn.ə.məlz\ while animaux is \a.ni.mo\. 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 38785, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

animals is recorded at frequency rank #37,653, classified as anoun, pronounced \ˈæn.ə.məlz\. animaux is at rank #1,132, tagged as anadj, pronounced \a.ni.mo\.

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 38785, this pair ranks #252,828 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of animals vs animaux

Shared letters: aimn. Private to "animals": ls. Private to "animaux": ux.

"animals" · 7 letters · shape VCVCVCC  ·  "animaux" · 7 letters · shape VCVCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • animalsainmals · aniamls · animalls · animalss · animasl · animlas · animmals · anmials
  • animauxainmaux · aniamux · animauxx · animaxu · animmaux · animuax · anmiaux · annimaux

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "animals" and "animaux" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "animals" is a noun and "animaux" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "animals" vs "animaux" - which ranks higher?
"animaux" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,132 in our French list, against #37,653 for "animals". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Eye-level mix-up between "animals" and "animaux" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "animals" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "animaux" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #252,828 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "animals" and "animaux" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "animals vs animant". 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 #252,828 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