impérialevsimpérialesWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: impériale is a noun, impériales is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#7,450
“impériale” frequency rank
#23,898
“impériales” frequency rank
31348
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature impériale impériales
Definition Monnaie d’or du poids de quatre deniers quatre grains (100 grains, ou grammes 5,32) et au titre de vingt-trois carats trois quarts (0, 99). Féminin pluriel de impérial.

Same sound, different letters: impériale vs impériales

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 9 letters. impériale runs 9 letters (VCCVCVVCV) against impériales's 10 (VCCVCVVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

9 ch
impériale
10 ch
impériales

Ear matches; page differs - impériale and impériales

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: impériale and impériales carry the same recorded pronunciation, \ɛ̃.pe.ʁjal\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is anoun, the other anadjective, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “impériale” sits inside “impériales”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 31348, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

impériale is recorded at frequency rank #7,450, classified as anoun, pronounced \ɛ̃.pe.ʁjal\. impériales is at rank #23,898, tagged as anadj, pronounced \ɛ̃.pe.ʁjal\.

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 31348, this pair ranks #304,356 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of impériale vs impériales

Shared letters: aeilmpré. Private to "impériale": -. Private to "impériales": s.

"impériale" · 9 letters · shape VCCVCVVCV  ·  "impériales" · 10 letters · shape VCCVCVVCVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "impériale" for "impériales" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "impériale" is a noun and "impériales" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "impériale" or "impériales"?
"impériale" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #7,450 in our French list, against #23,898 for "impériales". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Sound matches; spelling doesn't. Use the exits below to lock the right form or check a cousin pair.

  • Full dictionary entry for "impériale" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "impériales" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #304,356 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "impériale" and "impériales" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "impartiale vs impériale". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #304,356 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