Which to use
“male” is an adjective and “malles” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #21,385
- “male” frequency rank
- #46,281
- “malles” frequency rank
- 67666
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | male | malles |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Féminin singulier de mal, dans le sens de mauvaise. | Pluriel de malle. |
Same sound, different letters: male vs malles
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 4 letters. male runs 4 letters (CVCV) against malles's 6 (CVCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Ear matches; page differs - male and malles
Say them out loud and nothing separates them: male and malles carry the same recorded pronunciation, \mal\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is anadjective, the other anoun, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 67666, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
male is recorded at frequency rank #21,385, classified as anadj, pronounced \mal\. malles is at rank #46,281, tagged as anoun, pronounced \mal\.
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 67666, this pair ranks #62,401 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of male vs malles
Shared letters: aelm. Private to "male": -. Private to "malles": s.
"male" · 4 letters · shape CVCV · "malles" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "male" for "malles" ever safe?
Which is more common, "male" or "malles"?
After this comparison
You've separated the homophone pair "male" / "malles". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.
- Full dictionary entry for "male" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "malles" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #62,401 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "male" and "malles" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "malles 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 #62,401 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.