thermalevsthermalesTell them apart

Which to use

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

#27,637
“thermale” frequency rank
#36,181
“thermales” frequency rank
63818
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature thermale thermales
Definition Féminin singulier de thermal. Féminin pluriel de thermal.

Same sound, different letters: thermale vs thermales

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 8 letters. thermale runs 8 letters (CCVCCVCV) against thermales's 9 (CCVCCVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

8 ch
thermale
9 ch
thermales

Homophone desk: thermale vs thermales

This is the hard kind. thermale and thermales are pronounced identically (\tɛʁ.mal\) 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) - “thermale” sits inside “thermales”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 63818, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

thermale is recorded at frequency rank #27,637, classified as anadj, pronounced \tɛʁ.mal\. thermales is at rank #36,181, tagged as anadj, pronounced \tɛʁ.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 63818, this pair ranks #80,057 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of thermale vs thermales

Shared letters: aehlmrt. Private to "thermale": -. Private to "thermales": s.

"thermale" · 8 letters · shape CCVCCVCV  ·  "thermales" · 9 letters · shape CCVCCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • thermale ← htermale · tehrmale · themrale · theramle · thermael · thermalle · thermlae · thermmale
  • thermales ← htermales · tehrmales · themrales · theramles · thermaels · thermaless · thermalles · thermalse

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "thermale" and "thermales" be used interchangeably?
No. They are pronounced the same (\tɛʁ.mal\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
Frequency check: "thermale" vs "thermales" - which ranks higher?
"thermale" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #27,637 in our French list, against #36,181 for "thermales". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

"thermale" and "thermales" share a sound, keep the gloss open, then jump to the headword or a nearby trap.

  • Full dictionary entry for "thermale" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "thermales" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #80,057 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "thermale" and "thermales" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "thermal vs thermales". 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 #80,057 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