maladiesvsmélodiesWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#2,630
“maladies” frequency rank
#15,690
“mélodies” frequency rank
18320
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature maladies mélodies
Definition Pluriel de maladie. Pluriel de mélodie.

Where the eye mixes maladies and mélodies

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence. maladies and mélodies follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVCVVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

8 ch
maladies
8 ch
mélodies

Look-alike desk: maladies vs mélodies

A purely visual mix-up. maladies (\ma.la.di\) and mélodies (\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 18320, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

maladies is recorded at frequency rank #2,630, classified as anoun, pronounced \ma.la.di\. mélodies is at rank #15,690, 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 18320, this pair ranks #378,920 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of maladies vs mélodies

Shared letters: deilms. Private to "maladies": a. Private to "mélodies": oé.

"maladies" · 8 letters · shape CVCVCVVC  ·  "mélodies" · 8 letters · shape CVCVCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • maladies ← amladies · maaldies · maladdies · maladeis · maladiess · maladise · malaides · maldaies

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "maladies" and "mélodies" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\ma.la.di\ versus \me.lɔ.di\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "maladies" or "mélodies"?
"maladies" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,630 in our French list, against #15,690 for "mélodies". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "maladies" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "mélodies" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #378,920 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "maladies" and "mélodies" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "mélodies vs mélodiques". 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 #378,920 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