Which to use
“virulent” and “virulents” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #30,424
- “virulent” frequency rank
- #38,601
- “virulents” frequency rank
- 69025
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | virulent | virulents |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Qualifie les maladies produites par un virus. | Masculin pluriel de virulent. |
Same sound, different letters: virulent vs virulents
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 8 letters. virulent runs 8 letters (CVCVCVCC) against virulents's 9 (CVCVCVCCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Homophone desk: virulent vs virulents
This is the hard kind. virulent and virulents are pronounced identically (\vi.ʁy.lɑ̃\) 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) - “virulent” sits inside “virulents”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 69025, 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\. virulents is at rank #38,601, tagged as anadj, pronounced \vi.ʁy.lɑ̃\.
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 69025, this pair ranks #56,782 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of virulent vs virulents
Shared letters: eilnrtuv. Private to "virulent": -. Private to "virulents": s.
"virulent" · 8 letters · shape CVCVCVCC · "virulents" · 9 letters · shape CVCVCVCCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "virulent" and "virulents" be used interchangeably?
Which is more common, "virulent" or "virulents"?
Useful next steps
Sound matches; spelling doesn't. Use the exits below to lock the right form or check a cousin pair.
- Full dictionary entry for "virulent" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "virulents" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #56,782 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "virulent" and "virulents" 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 #56,782 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.