animalsvsaniméesConfusable pair

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

Which to use

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

#37,653
“animals” frequency rank
#19,207
“animées” frequency rank
56860
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature animals animées
Definition Pluriel de animal. Féminin pluriel de animé.

Where the eye mixes animals and animées

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. animals (VCVCVCC) and animées (VCVCVVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

7 ch
animals
7 ch
animées

Look-alike desk: animals vs animées

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: animals is \ˈæn.ə.məlz\ while animées is \a.ni.me\. 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 56860, 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\. animées is at rank #19,207, tagged as anadj, pronounced \a.ni.me\.

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 56860, this pair ranks #118,470 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of animals vs animées

Shared letters: aimns. Private to "animals": l. Private to "animées": eé.

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

Known mistypes of this pair

  • animals ← ainmals · aniamls · animalls · animalss · animasl · animlas · animmals · anmials

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "animals" and "animées" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "animals" is a noun and "animées" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "animals" vs "animées" - which ranks higher?
"animées" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #19,207 in our French list, against #37,653 for "animals". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "animals" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "animées" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #118,470 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "animals" and "animées" 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 #118,470 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