cannibalevscannibalesTell them apart

Which to use

“cannibale” and “cannibales” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#36,746
“cannibale” frequency rank
#36,291
“cannibales” frequency rank
73037
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cannibale cannibales
Definition Être vivant qui mange de la chair d’individus de la même espèce que lui. Pluriel de cannibale.

Same sound, different letters: cannibale vs cannibales

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 9 letters. cannibale runs 9 letters (CVCCVCVCV) against cannibales's 10 (CVCCVCVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

9 ch
cannibale
10 ch
cannibales

Ear matches; page differs - cannibale and cannibales

This is the hard kind. cannibale and cannibales are pronounced identically (\ka.ni.bal\) and both work as anoun. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “cannibale” sits inside “cannibales”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 73037, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cannibale is recorded at frequency rank #36,746, classified as anoun, pronounced \ka.ni.bal\. cannibales is at rank #36,291, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ka.ni.bal\.

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 73037, this pair ranks #41,853 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of cannibale vs cannibales

Shared letters: abceiln. Private to "cannibale": -. Private to "cannibales": s.

"cannibale" · 9 letters · shape CVCCVCVCV  ·  "cannibales" · 10 letters · shape CVCCVCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • cannibale ← acnnibale · canibale · caninbale · cannbiale · canniable · cannibael · canniballe · cannibbale
  • cannibales ← acnnibales · canibales · caninbales · cannbiales · canniables · cannibaels · cannibaless · canniballes

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "cannibale" and "cannibales" be used interchangeably?
No. They are pronounced the same (\ka.ni.bal\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
In ordinary French text, does "cannibale" or "cannibales" show up more?
"cannibales" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #36,291 in our French list, against #36,746 for "cannibale". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Sound matches; spelling doesn't. Use the exits below to lock the right form or check a cousin pair.

  • Full dictionary entry for "cannibale" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "cannibales" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #41,853 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • 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 #41,853 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