makesvsmallesWhat's the difference?

Which to use

“makes” and “malles” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#41,884
“makes” frequency rank
#46,281
“malles” frequency rank
88165
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature makes malles
Definition Pluriel de make. Pluriel de malle.

Where the eye mixes makes and malles

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. makes runs 5 letters (CVCVC) against malles's 6 (CVCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
makes
6 ch
malles

Look-alike desk: makes vs malles

A purely visual mix-up. makes (\ˈmeɪks\) and malles (\mal\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 88165, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

makes is recorded at frequency rank #41,884, classified as anoun, pronounced \ˈmeɪks\. malles is at rank #46,281, tagged as anoun, pronounced \mal\.

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 88165, this pair ranks #7,331 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of makes vs malles

Shared letters: aems. Private to "makes": k. Private to "malles": l.

"makes" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "malles" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • makes ← amkes · maeks · makess · makkes · makse · mkaes · mmakes
  • malles ← amlles · malels · males · malless · mallse · mlales · mmalles

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "makes" and "malles" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\ˈmeɪks\ versus \mal\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "makes" vs "malles" - which ranks higher?
"makes" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #41,884 in our French list, against #46,281 for "malles". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "makes" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "malles" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #7,331 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "makes" and "malles" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "malles vs manies". 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 #7,331 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