fébrilesvsferriesTell them apart

Quick tell: fébriles is a adjective, ferries is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#48,545
“fébriles” frequency rank
#31,491
“ferries” frequency rank
80036
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature fébriles ferries
Definition Pluriel de fébrile. Pluriel de ferry.

Where the eye mixes fébriles and ferries

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. fébriles runs 8 letters (CVCCVCVC) against ferries's 7 (CVCCVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

8 ch
fébriles
7 ch
ferries

Why the eye confuses fébriles with ferries

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: fébriles is \fe.bʁil\ while ferries is \fɛ.ʁi\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 80036, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

fébriles is recorded at frequency rank #48,545, classified as anadj, pronounced \fe.bʁil\. ferries is at rank #31,491, tagged as anoun, pronounced \fɛ.ʁi\.

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 80036, this pair ranks #21,889 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of fébriles vs ferries

Shared letters: efirs. Private to "fébriles": blé. Private to "ferries": -.

"fébriles" · 8 letters · shape CVCCVCVC  ·  "ferries" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • ferries ← efrries · ferires · ferreis · ferriess · ferrise · fferries · freries

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "fébriles" for "ferries" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "fébriles" is an adjective and "ferries" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "fébriles" vs "ferries" - which ranks higher?
"ferries" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #31,491 in our French list, against #48,545 for "fébriles". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Eye-level mix-up between "fébriles" and "ferries" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "fébriles" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "ferries" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #21,889 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "fébriles" and "ferries" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ferrière vs ferries". 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 #21,889 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