mélancolique vs mélancoliques

Which to use

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

#18,804
“mélancolique” frequency rank: #47,473
“mélancoliques” frequency rank: 66277
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	mélancolique	mélancoliques
Definition	Qui se livre à la mélancolie.	Pluriel de mélancolique.

Same sound, different letters: mélancolique vs mélancoliques

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 12 letters. mélancolique runs 12 letters (CVCVCCVCVCVV) against mélancoliques's 13 (CVCVCCVCVCVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

12 ch

mélancolique

13 ch

mélancoliques

Same sound, different spelling - mélancolique / mélancoliques

This is the hard kind. mélancolique and mélancoliques are pronounced identically (\me.lɑ̃.kɔ.lik\) 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 1 extra letter(s) - “mélancolique” sits inside “mélancoliques”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 66277, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

mélancolique is recorded at frequency rank #18,804, classified as anadj, pronounced \me.lɑ̃.kɔ.lik\. mélancoliques is at rank #47,473, tagged as anadj, pronounced \me.lɑ̃.kɔ.lik\.

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 66277, this pair ranks #68,505 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of mélancolique vs mélancoliques

Shared letters: aceilmnoqué. Private to "mélancolique": -. Private to "mélancoliques": s.

"mélancolique" · 12 letters · shape CVCVCCVCVCVV · "mélancoliques" · 13 letters · shape CVCVCCVCVCVVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "mélancolique" and "mélancoliques" mean the same thing in a sentence?

No. They are pronounced the same (\me.lɑ̃.kɔ.lik\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.

Which is more common, "mélancolique" or "mélancoliques"?

"mélancolique" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #18,804 in our French list, against #47,473 for "mélancoliques". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

You've separated the homophone pair "mélancolique" / "mélancoliques". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.

Full dictionary entry for "mélancolique" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "mélancoliques" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #68,505 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"mélancolique" and "mélancoliques" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "mélancolie vs mélancolique". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #68,505 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.