Which to use
“malade” and “malades” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #1,269
- “malade” frequency rank
- #3,274
- “malades” frequency rank
- 4543
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | malade | malades |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Dont la santé est altérée. | Pluriel de l’adjectif malade. |
Same sound, different letters: malade vs malades
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 6 letters.
Ear matches; page differs - malade and malades
This is the hard kind. malade and malades are pronounced identically (\ma.lad\) 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) - “malade” sits inside “malades”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 4543, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
malade is recorded at frequency rank #1,269, classified as anadj, pronounced \ma.lad\. malades is at rank #3,274, tagged as anadj, pronounced \ma.lad\.
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 4543, this pair ranks #431,345 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of malade vs malades
Shared letters: adelm. Private to "malade": -. Private to "malades": s.
"malade" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV · "malades" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "malade" and "malades" be used interchangeably?
Which is more common, "malade" or "malades"?
After this comparison
Sound matches; spelling doesn't. Use the exits below to lock the right form or check a cousin pair.
- Full dictionary entry for "malade" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "malades" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #431,345 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "malade" and "malades" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "malades vs malles". 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 #431,345 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.