Which to use
“malades” is an adjective and “malines” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #3,274
- “malades” frequency rank
- #19,589
- “malines” frequency rank
- 22863
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | malades | malines |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Pluriel de l’adjectif malade. | Dentelle très fine qui s’est fabriquée originairement dans la ville de Malines, en Flandre. |
Where the eye mixes malades and malines
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. malades and malines follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Visual trap between malades and malines
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: malades is \ma.lad\ while malines is \ma.lin\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 22863, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
malades is recorded at frequency rank #3,274, classified as anadj, pronounced \ma.lad\. malines is at rank #19,589, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ma.lin\.
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 22863, this pair ranks #355,724 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of malades vs malines
Shared letters: aelms. Private to "malades": d. Private to "malines": in.
"malades" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVC · "malines" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "malades" for "malines" ever safe?
Which is more common, "malades" or "malines"?
Useful next steps
Eye-level mix-up between "malades" and "malines" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "malades" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "malines" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #355,724 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "malades" and "malines" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "malines 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 #355,724 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.