Which to use
“dorsal” and “dorsales” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #46,708
- “dorsal” frequency rank
- #42,293
- “dorsales” frequency rank
- 89001
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | dorsal | dorsales |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Qui appartient au dos. | Féminin pluriel de dorsal. |
Same sound, different letters: dorsal vs dorsales
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 6 letters. dorsal runs 6 letters (CVCCVC) against dorsales's 8 (CVCCVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Same sound, different spelling - dorsal / dorsales
This is the hard kind. dorsal and dorsales are pronounced identically (\dɔʁ.sal\) 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) - “dorsal” sits inside “dorsales”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 89001, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
dorsal is recorded at frequency rank #46,708, classified as anadj, pronounced \dɔʁ.sal\. dorsales is at rank #42,293, tagged as anadj, pronounced \dɔʁ.sal\.
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 89001, this pair ranks #6,290 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of dorsal vs dorsales
Shared letters: adlors. Private to "dorsal": -. Private to "dorsales": e.
"dorsal" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC · "dorsales" · 8 letters · shape CVCCVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "dorsal" for "dorsales" ever safe?
Frequency check: "dorsal" vs "dorsales" - which ranks higher?
What to do next
"dorsal" and "dorsales" share a sound, keep the gloss open, then jump to the headword or a nearby trap.
- Full dictionary entry for "dorsal" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "dorsales" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #6,290 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "dorsal" and "dorsales" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "dorsales vs dosages". 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 #6,290 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.