Which to use
“marginal” and “marginales” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #17,762
- “marginal” frequency rank
- #35,144
- “marginales” frequency rank
- 52906
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | marginal | marginales |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Qui est situé dans la marge d’un texte. | Féminin pluriel de marginal. |
Same sound, different letters: marginal vs marginales
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 8 letters. marginal runs 8 letters (CVCCVCVC) against marginales's 10 (CVCCVCVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Same sound, different spelling - marginal / marginales
This is the hard kind. marginal and marginales are pronounced identically (\maʁ.ʒi.nal\) and both work as anadjective. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “marginal” sits inside “marginales”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 52906, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
marginal is recorded at frequency rank #17,762, classified as anadj, pronounced \maʁ.ʒi.nal\. marginales is at rank #35,144, tagged as anadj, pronounced \maʁ.ʒi.nal\.
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 52906, this pair ranks #144,431 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of marginal vs marginales
Shared letters: agilmnr. Private to "marginal": -. Private to "marginales": es.
"marginal" · 8 letters · shape CVCCVCVC · "marginales" · 10 letters · shape CVCCVCVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- marginal ← amrginal · magrinal · margginal · margianl · marginall · marginla · marginnal · margnial
- marginales ← amrginales · magrinales · margginales · margianles · marginaels · marginaless · marginalles · marginalse
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "marginal" for "marginales" ever safe?
Which is more common, "marginal" or "marginales"?
What to do next
You've separated the homophone pair "marginal" / "marginales". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.
- Full dictionary entry for "marginal" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "marginales" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #144,431 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "marginal" and "marginales" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "marginales vs marginalisés". 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 #144,431 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.