Which to use
“maladie” and “mélodie” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #1,117
- “maladie” frequency rank
- #10,911
- “mélodie” frequency rank
- 12028
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | maladie | mélodie |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Problème de santé chez un être vivant qui se traduit par une baisse des capacités physiques ou par un dysfonctionnement, une altération du métabolisme. | Suite de sons d’où résulte un chant agréable et régulier. |
Where the eye mixes maladie and mélodie
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. maladie and mélodie follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVCVV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Why the eye confuses maladie with mélodie
A purely visual mix-up. maladie (\ma.la.di\) and mélodie (\me.lɔ.di\) 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 12028, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
maladie is recorded at frequency rank #1,117, classified as anoun, pronounced \ma.la.di\. mélodie is at rank #10,911, tagged as anoun, pronounced \me.lɔ.di\.
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 12028, this pair ranks #406,856 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of maladie vs mélodie
Shared letters: deilm. Private to "maladie": a. Private to "mélodie": oé.
"maladie" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVV · "mélodie" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVV
Known mistypes of this pair
- maladie ← amladie · maaldie · maladdie · maladei · malaide · maldaie · malladie · mlaadie
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "maladie" for "mélodie" ever safe?
Frequency check: "maladie" vs "mélodie" - which ranks higher?
What to do next
Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.
- Full dictionary entry for "maladie" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "mélodie" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #406,856 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "maladie" and "mélodie" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Magalie vs maladie". 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 #406,856 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.