cervicalevscervicalesWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#40,168
“cervicale” frequency rank
#33,599
“cervicales” frequency rank
73767
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cervicale cervicales
Definition Vertèbre cervicale. Féminin pluriel de cervical.

Same sound, different letters: cervicale vs cervicales

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

9 ch
cervicale
10 ch
cervicales

Homophone desk: cervicale vs cervicales

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: cervicale and cervicales carry the same recorded pronunciation, \sɛʁ.vi.kal\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is anoun, the other anadjective, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “cervicale” sits inside “cervicales”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 73767, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cervicale is recorded at frequency rank #40,168, classified as anoun, pronounced \sɛʁ.vi.kal\. cervicales is at rank #33,599, tagged as anadj, pronounced \sɛʁ.vi.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 73767, this pair ranks #39,339 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of cervicale vs cervicales

Shared letters: aceilrv. Private to "cervicale": -. Private to "cervicales": s.

"cervicale" · 9 letters · shape CVCCVCVCV  ·  "cervicales" · 10 letters · shape CVCCVCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • cervicale ← ccervicale · cerivcale · cerrvicale · cervciale · cerviacle · cervicael · cervicalle · cerviccale
  • cervicales ← ccervicales · cerivcales · cerrvicales · cervciales · cerviacles · cervicaels · cervicaless · cervicalles

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "cervicale" for "cervicales" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "cervicale" is a noun and "cervicales" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "cervicale" or "cervicales"?
"cervicales" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #33,599 in our French list, against #40,168 for "cervicale". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "cervicale" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "cervicales" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #39,339 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 #39,339 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