abordagevsabordéeWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: abordage is a noun, abordée is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“abordage” is a noun and “abordée” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#35,790
“abordage” frequency rank
#23,087
“abordée” frequency rank
58877
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature abordage abordée
Definition Action d'aborder ; manœuvre d’un navire pour s’amarrer bord à bord avec un autre afin de le prendre d’assaut. Féminin singulier de abordé.

Where the eye mixes abordage and abordée

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence. abordage runs 8 letters (VCVCCVCV) against abordée's 7 (VCVCCVV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

8 ch
abordage
7 ch
abordée

Look-alike desk: abordage vs abordée

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: abordage is \a.bɔʁ.daʒ\ while abordée is \a.bɔʁ.de\. 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 58877, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

abordage is recorded at frequency rank #35,790, classified as anoun, pronounced \a.bɔʁ.daʒ\. abordée is at rank #23,087, tagged as anadj, pronounced \a.bɔʁ.de\.

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 58877, this pair ranks #106,379 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of abordage vs abordée

Shared letters: abdeor. Private to "abordage": g. Private to "abordée": é.

"abordage" · 8 letters · shape VCVCCVCV  ·  "abordée" · 7 letters · shape VCVCCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • abordage ← abbordage · abodrage · aboradge · abordaeg · abordagge · aborddage · abordgae · aborrdage

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "abordage" for "abordée" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "abordage" is a noun and "abordée" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "abordage" or "abordée"?
"abordée" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #23,087 in our French list, against #35,790 for "abordage". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

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 "abordage" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "abordée" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #106,379 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "abordage" and "abordée" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "abordage vs amorçage". 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 #106,379 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