abîméevsaimerTell them apart

Quick tell: abîmée is a adjective, aimer is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“abîmée” is an adjective and “aimer” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#33,096
“abîmée” frequency rank
#1,847
“aimer” frequency rank
34943
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature abîmée aimer
Definition Féminin singulier de abîmé. Ressentir un fort sentiment d’attirance pour quelqu’un ou quelque chose.

Where the eye mixes abîmée and aimer

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. abîmée runs 6 letters (VCVCVV) against aimer's 5 (VVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
abîmée
5 ch
aimer

Look-alike desk: abîmée vs aimer

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: abîmée is \a.bi.me\ while aimer is \e.me\. 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 (adjective vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 34943, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

abîmée is recorded at frequency rank #33,096, classified as anadj, pronounced \a.bi.me\. aimer is at rank #1,847, tagged as averb, pronounced \e.me\.

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 34943, this pair ranks #280,286 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of abîmée vs aimer

Shared letters: aem. Private to "abîmée": béî. Private to "aimer": ir.

"abîmée" · 6 letters · shape VCVCVV  ·  "aimer" · 5 letters · shape VVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • aimer ← aiemr · aimerr · aimmer · aimre · amier · iamer

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "abîmée" and "aimer" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "abîmée" is an adjective and "aimer" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "abîmée" vs "aimer" - which ranks higher?
"aimer" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,847 in our French list, against #33,096 for "abîmée". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "abîmée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "aimer" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #280,286 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "abîmée" and "aimer" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "abîmée vs abusée". 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 #280,286 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