Which to use
“brutal” and “brutales” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #10,463
- “brutal” frequency rank
- #31,379
- “brutales” frequency rank
- 41842
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | brutal | brutales |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Qui tient de la brute, bestial. | Féminin pluriel de brutal. |
Same sound, different letters: brutal vs brutales
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 6 letters. brutal runs 6 letters (CCVCVC) against brutales's 8 (CCVCVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Homophone desk: brutal vs brutales
This is the hard kind. brutal and brutales are pronounced identically (\bʁy.tal\) and both work as anadjective. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “brutal” sits inside “brutales”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 41842, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
brutal is recorded at frequency rank #10,463, classified as anadj, pronounced \bʁy.tal\. brutales is at rank #31,379, tagged as anadj, pronounced \bʁy.tal\.
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 41842, this pair ranks #230,104 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of brutal vs brutales
Shared letters: ablrtu. Private to "brutal": -. Private to "brutales": es.
"brutal" · 6 letters · shape CCVCVC · "brutales" · 8 letters · shape CCVCVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "brutal" and "brutales" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Frequency check: "brutal" vs "brutales" - which ranks higher?
What to do next
You've separated the homophone pair "brutal" / "brutales". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.
- Full dictionary entry for "brutal" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "brutales" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #230,104 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "brutal" and "brutales" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Brunel vs brutal". 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 #230,104 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.