Which to use
“saleté” and “saletés” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #19,678
- “saleté” frequency rank
- #33,001
- “saletés” frequency rank
- 52679
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | saleté | saletés |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | État de ce qui est sale, malpropre. | Pluriel de saleté. |
Same sound, different letters: saleté vs saletés
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 6 letters. saleté runs 6 letters (CVCVCV) against saletés's 7 (CVCVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Same sound, different spelling - saleté / saletés
This is the hard kind. saleté and saletés are pronounced identically (\sal.te\) and both work as anoun. 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) - “saleté” sits inside “saletés”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 52679, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
saleté is recorded at frequency rank #19,678, classified as anoun, pronounced \sal.te\. saletés is at rank #33,001, tagged as anoun, pronounced \sal.te\.
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 52679, this pair ranks #146,017 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of saleté vs saletés
Shared letters: aelsté. Private to "saleté": -. Private to "saletés": -.
"saleté" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV · "saletés" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVC
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "saleté" and "saletés" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Which is more common, "saleté" or "saletés"?
After this comparison
Sound matches; spelling doesn't. Use the exits below to lock the right form or check a cousin pair.
- Full dictionary entry for "saleté" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "saletés" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #146,017 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "saleté" and "saletés" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "saletés vs salves". Nearby pair
Confusion rank #146,017 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.