Which to use
“virulence” is a noun and “virulentes” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #33,068
- “virulence” frequency rank
- #42,681
- “virulentes” frequency rank
- 75749
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | virulence | virulentes |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Aptitude des microbes à se développer dans l’organisme et à y sécréter des poisons. | Féminin pluriel de virulent. |
Where the eye mixes virulence and virulentes
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 8 letters in sequence. virulence runs 9 letters (CVCVCVCCV) against virulentes's 10 (CVCVCVCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Why the eye confuses virulence with virulentes
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: virulence is \vi.ʁy.lɑ̃s\ while virulentes is \vi.ʁy.lɑ̃t\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 75749, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
virulence is recorded at frequency rank #33,068, classified as anoun, pronounced \vi.ʁy.lɑ̃s\. virulentes is at rank #42,681, tagged as anadj, pronounced \vi.ʁy.lɑ̃t\.
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 75749, this pair ranks #33,125 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of virulence vs virulentes
Shared letters: eilnruv. Private to "virulence": c. Private to "virulentes": st.
"virulence" · 9 letters · shape CVCVCVCCV · "virulentes" · 10 letters · shape CVCVCVCCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- virulence ← ivrulence · virluence · virrulence · viruelnce · virulecne · virulencce · virulenec · virulennce
- virulentes ← ivrulentes · virluentes · virrulentes · viruelntes · virulenets · virulenntes · virulentess · virulentse
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "virulence" and "virulentes" be used interchangeably?
In ordinary French text, does "virulence" or "virulentes" show up more?
After this comparison
Eye-level mix-up between "virulence" and "virulentes" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "virulence" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "virulentes" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #33,125 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "virulence" and "virulentes" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "virulentes vs virulents". 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 #33,125 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.