controverse

\kɔ̃.tʁɔ.vɛʁs\

/\kɔ̃.tʁɔ.vɛʁs\/ noun

The verdict

“controverse” has 17 generated spelling variants in the French index at frequency #8,830. The variants make it a useful spelling check.

#8,830
frequency rank, French
8,609
“C” headwords
17
tracked misspellings
3
confusable pairs

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Débat sur une question, sur une opinion, etc. suscité par des avis divergents.

Corpus desk

Index FR-controverse · controverse · French

controverse · rank #8,830 · 17 variants · 3 confusables

  • FREQ-COMMON #8,830
  • LEN-MEGA 11 letters
  • VOW-4 4 vowels
  • CONFUS-LOW 3 pairs
  • VAR-HIGH 17 variants
  • BOOK-DENSE 8,609
  • PHOTO-FINISH contrepartie

Nearest frequency peer: contrepartie (-1 rank slots)

Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.

Pairs de rang près de l'aimant d'erreurs « controverse »

Même bande de rareté: utile si une faute tombe sur un lemme voisin

corpus weight

What this shows « controverse » siège parmi ces pairs FrequencyWords; la profondeur des fautes est suivie à part dans le graphique d'édition.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026

Visual similarity to commonly confused words

How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).

controverse vs controversée
92% similar
controverse vs controversés
83% similar
controverse vs controversées
85% similar

Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).

Key facts for controverse
PropertyValue
Headwordcontroverse
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\kɔ̃.tʁɔ.vɛʁs\
Letters11
Frequency rank#8,830
Misspellings tracked17
Confusable pairs3
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Fréquence de l'aimant d'erreurs « controverse »

De gauche à droite: le peu qui porte la parole quotidienne, puis la longue queue quasi invisible.controversese place ici:

#1#100#1K#10K#100K
← used constantlyrarely used →

Les tics avancent en logarithme; chacun est de l'ordre de dix fois plus rare. Dans la même bande de rareté figurent « contrepartie » (#8,829), « Cooper » (#8,831), « conservatoire » (#8,828). Parmi 8,609 lemmes en « C », « controverse » est au #8,830. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

A misspelling magnet

The generator records 17 spelling variants around controverse (IPA \kɔ̃.tʁɔ.vɛʁs\), anoun. Corpus frequency is #8,830 among 8,609 “C” headwords. Wiktionary lists 2 senses, so context still picks the gloss.

Our generated misspelling index lists 17 likely wrong-spelling variants for controverse, with forms such as "ccontroverse", "cnotroverse", and "conntroverse". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It also participates in 3 confusable-pair relationships, "controversée", "controversés", "controversées", a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.

This headword's origin isn't recorded in our source data, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. The correct French form is controverse, spelled C-O-N-T-R-O-V-E-R-S-E.

Definition

  1. 1
    Débat sur une question, sur une opinion, etc. suscité par des avis divergents.
  2. 2
    Dispute qui a pour objet des points de foi.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

These source excerpts show how controverse appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. L’Assemblée de Versailles […] consuma toute une année en controverses stériles, en discussions puériles, en luttes bysantines.
  2. Malgré les controverses de l’entre-deux-guerres, sous la pression de la laïcisation en cours des affaires publiques, la plupart des sociétés ont rechigné à abandonner l'idée que l’État représente un système décrété par Dieu, pour le salut des hommes dans ce monde et dans l'autre.

Synonyms

This word in other languages

Common misspellings

Also misspelled as:

  • ccontroverse
  • cnotroverse
  • conntroverse
  • conrtoverse
  • contorverse
  • controevrse
  • controveres
  • controverrse
  • controversse
  • controvesre
  • controvrese
  • controvverse
  • contrroverse
  • contrvoerse
  • conttroverse
  • cotnroverse
  • ocntroverse

Misspelling Pattern Breakdown

How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of controverse - expressed in single-character edits (insert, delete, or swap one letter). Bigger bars stand out at a glance; a one-edit slip is the hardest to catch.

ccontroverse1cnotroverse2conntroverse1conrtoverse2contorverse2controevrse2controveres2controverrse1
Edit distance from "controverse"

Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 French corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "controverse"?
"controverse" is spelled C-O-N-T-R-O-V-E-R-S-E. The IPA pronunciation is \kɔ̃.tʁɔ.vɛʁs\.
What does "controverse" mean?
As a noun, "controverse" means: Débat sur une question, sur une opinion, etc. suscité par des avis divergents.
What words are commonly confused with "controverse"?
"controverse" is commonly confused with "controversée", "controversés", "controversées". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "controverse"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "controverse" is \kɔ̃.tʁɔ.vɛʁs\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "controverse" come from?
"controverse" is a French word. PlainSpell's reference spans five languages -- English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German -- with definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for each.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Similar French words by spelling shape

Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "controverse", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked French headwords with 11 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

Similar misspelling depth

Headwords with a similar count of attested misspellings (17 here; floor ≥5).

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list