Which to use
“virulent” and “virulentes” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #30,424
- “virulent” frequency rank
- #42,681
- “virulentes” frequency rank
- 73105
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | virulent | virulentes |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Qualifie les maladies produites par un virus. | Féminin pluriel de virulent. |
Where the eye mixes virulent and virulentes
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 8 letters in sequence.
Look-alike desk: virulent vs virulentes
A purely visual mix-up. virulent (\vi.ʁy.lɑ̃\) and virulentes (\vi.ʁy.lɑ̃t\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “virulent” sits inside “virulentes”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 73105, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
virulent is recorded at frequency rank #30,424, classified as anadj, pronounced \vi.ʁy.lɑ̃\. 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 73105, this pair ranks #41,599 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of virulent vs virulentes
Shared letters: eilnrtuv. Private to "virulent": -. Private to "virulentes": s.
"virulent" · 8 letters · shape CVCVCVCC · "virulentes" · 10 letters · shape CVCVCVCCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- virulent ← ivrulent · virluent · virrulent · viruelnt · virulennt · virulentt · viruletn · virullent
- virulentes ← ivrulentes · virluentes · virrulentes · viruelntes · virulenets · virulenntes · virulentess · virulentse
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "virulent" and "virulentes" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Which is more common, "virulent" or "virulentes"?
Useful next steps
Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.
- Full dictionary entry for "virulent" 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 #41,599 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "virulent" 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 #41,599 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.