Which to use
“malade” and “malais” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #1,269
- “malade” frequency rank
- #36,480
- “malais” frequency rank
- 37749
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | malade | malais |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Dont la santé est altérée. | Relatif aux Malais, aux populations de langue malaise, qui habitent la côte orientale de Sumatra, la péninsule de Malacca et le littoral de Bornéo. |
Where the eye mixes malade and malais
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.
Look-alike desk: malade vs malais
A purely visual mix-up. malade (\ma.lad\) and malais (\ma.lɛ\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 37749, 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\. malais is at rank #36,480, tagged as anadj, pronounced \ma.lɛ\.
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 37749, this pair ranks #260,207 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of malade vs malais
Shared letters: alm. Private to "malade": de. Private to "malais": is.
"malade" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV · "malais" · 6 letters · shape CVCVVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "malade" for "malais" ever safe?
Which is more common, "malade" or "malais"?
After this comparison
Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.
- Full dictionary entry for "malade" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "malais" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #260,207 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "malade" and "malais" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "malais vs malsains". 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 #260,207 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.