Which to use
“fébrile” and “fébriles” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #28,178
- “fébrile” frequency rank
- #48,545
- “fébriles” frequency rank
- 76723
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | fébrile | fébriles |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Qui a rapport à la fièvre, qui produit la fièvre. | Pluriel de fébrile. |
Same sound, different letters: fébrile vs fébriles
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 7 letters. fébrile runs 7 letters (CVCCVCV) against fébriles's 8 (CVCCVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Ear matches; page differs - fébrile and fébriles
This is the hard kind. fébrile and fébriles are pronounced identically (\fe.bʁil\) 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) - “fébrile” sits inside “fébriles”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 76723, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
fébrile is recorded at frequency rank #28,178, classified as anadj, pronounced \fe.bʁil\. fébriles is at rank #48,545, tagged as anadj, pronounced \fe.bʁil\.
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 76723, this pair ranks #30,337 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of fébrile vs fébriles
Shared letters: befilré. Private to "fébrile": -. Private to "fébriles": s.
"fébrile" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCV · "fébriles" · 8 letters · shape CVCCVCVC
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "fébrile" for "fébriles" ever safe?
In ordinary French text, does "fébrile" or "fébriles" show up more?
What to do next
"fébrile" and "fébriles" share a sound, keep the gloss open, then jump to the headword or a nearby trap.
- Full dictionary entry for "fébrile" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "fébriles" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #30,337 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "fébrile" and "fébriles" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "fébriles vs ferries". Nearby pair
Confusion rank #30,337 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.