Which to use
“fatal” and “fatales” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #11,774
- “fatal” frequency rank
- #33,259
- “fatales” frequency rank
- 45033
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | fatal | fatales |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Qu’on ne peut éviter, qui doit arriver inévitablement, qui est fixé d’une manière irrévocable. | Féminin pluriel de fatal. |
Same sound, different letters: fatal vs fatales
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 5 letters. fatal runs 5 letters (CVCVC) against fatales's 7 (CVCVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Ear matches; page differs - fatal and fatales
This is the hard kind. fatal and fatales 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 2 extra letter(s) - “fatal” sits inside “fatales”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 45033, 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\. fatales is at rank #33,259, 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 45033, this pair ranks #205,914 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of fatal vs fatales
Shared letters: aflt. Private to "fatal": -. Private to "fatales": es.
"fatal" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC · "fatales" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "fatal" and "fatales" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "fatal" or "fatales" show up more?
After this comparison
You've separated the homophone pair "fatal" / "fatales". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.
- Full dictionary entry for "fatal" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "fatales" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #205,914 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "fatal" and "fatales" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "fœtale vs fatales". 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 #205,914 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.