frontalvsfrontaleWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#20,732
“frontal” frequency rank
#15,389
“frontale” frequency rank
36121
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature frontal frontale
Definition Qui a rapport ou qui appartient au front. Surface visible, face au client, utilisée sur un rayonnage pour la présentation d’un produit.

Same sound, different letters: frontal vs frontale

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 7 letters.

7 ch
frontal
8 ch
frontale

Homophone desk: frontal vs frontale

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: frontal and frontale carry the same recorded pronunciation, \fʁɔ̃.tal\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is anadjective, the other anoun, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “frontal” sits inside “frontale”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 36121, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

frontal is recorded at frequency rank #20,732, classified as anadj, pronounced \fʁɔ̃.tal\. frontale is at rank #15,389, tagged as anoun, pronounced \fʁɔ̃.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 36121, this pair ranks #271,861 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of frontal vs frontale

Shared letters: aflnort. Private to "frontal": -. Private to "frontale": e.

"frontal" · 7 letters · shape CCVCCVC  ·  "frontale" · 8 letters · shape CCVCCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • frontalffrontal · forntal · frnotal · fronatl · fronntal · frontall · frontla · fronttal
  • frontaleffrontale · forntale · frnotale · fronatle · fronntale · frontael · frontalle · frontlae

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "frontal" for "frontale" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "frontal" is an adjective and "frontale" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "frontal" vs "frontale" - which ranks higher?
"frontale" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #15,389 in our French list, against #20,732 for "frontal". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

You've separated the homophone pair "frontal" / "frontale". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.

  • Full dictionary entry for "frontal" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "frontale" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #271,861 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "frontal" and "frontale" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "frontal vs frontales". 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 #271,861 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