Which to use
“hostile” and “hostiles” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #7,708
- “hostile” frequency rank
- #11,423
- “hostiles” frequency rank
- 19131
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | hostile | hostiles |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Qui est d’un ennemi, qui annonce, qui caractérise un ennemi. | Pluriel de hostile. |
Same sound, different letters: hostile vs hostiles
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 7 letters.
Ear matches; page differs - hostile and hostiles
This is the hard kind. hostile and hostiles are pronounced identically (\ɔs.til\) 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) - “hostile” sits inside “hostiles”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 19131, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
hostile is recorded at frequency rank #7,708, classified as anadj, pronounced \ɔs.til\. hostiles is at rank #11,423, tagged as anadj, pronounced \ɔs.til\.
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 19131, this pair ranks #374,831 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of hostile vs hostiles
Shared letters: ehilost. Private to "hostile": -. Private to "hostiles": -.
"hostile" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCV · "hostiles" · 8 letters · shape CVCCVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "hostile" for "hostiles" ever safe?
Frequency check: "hostile" vs "hostiles" - which ranks higher?
What to do next
"hostile" and "hostiles" share a sound, keep the gloss open, then jump to the headword or a nearby trap.
- Full dictionary entry for "hostile" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "hostiles" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #374,831 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "hostile" and "hostiles" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "hostel vs hostile". 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 #374,831 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.