Which to use
“fatal” and “fatale” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #11,774
- “fatal” frequency rank
- #11,407
- “fatale” frequency rank
- 23181
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | fatal | fatale |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Qu’on ne peut éviter, qui doit arriver inévitablement, qui est fixé d’une manière irrévocable. | Féminin singulier de fatal. |
Same sound, different letters: fatal vs fatale
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 5 letters.
Homophone desk: fatal vs fatale
This is the hard kind. fatal and fatale are pronounced identically (\fa.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 1 extra letter(s) - “fatal” sits inside “fatale”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 23181, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
fatal is recorded at frequency rank #11,774, classified as anadj, pronounced \fa.tal\. fatale is at rank #11,407, tagged as anadj, pronounced \fa.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 23181, this pair ranks #353,910 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of fatal vs fatale
Shared letters: aflt. Private to "fatal": -. Private to "fatale": e.
"fatal" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC · "fatale" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "fatal" and "fatale" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Which is more common, "fatal" or "fatale"?
Useful next steps
Sound matches; spelling doesn't. Use the exits below to lock the right form or check a cousin pair.
- Full dictionary entry for "fatal" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "fatale" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #353,910 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "fatal" and "fatale" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "fœtale vs fatal". 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 #353,910 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.