achetavsacheterWhat's the difference?

Which to use

“acheta” and “acheter” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#30,886
“acheta” frequency rank
#782
“acheter” frequency rank
31668
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature acheta acheter
Definition Troisième personne du singulier du passé simple du verbe acheter. Acquérir quelque chose en l’échangeant contre sa valeur en devise.

Where the eye mixes acheta and acheter

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. acheta runs 6 letters (VCCVCV) against acheter's 7 (VCCVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
acheta
7 ch
acheter

Look-alike desk: acheta vs acheter

A purely visual mix-up. acheta (\a.ʃə.ta\) and acheter (\a.ʃə.te\) 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 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 31668, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

acheta is recorded at frequency rank #30,886, classified as averb, pronounced \a.ʃə.ta\. acheter is at rank #782, tagged as averb, pronounced \a.ʃə.te\.

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 31668, this pair ranks #302,346 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of acheta vs acheter

Shared letters: aceht. Private to "acheta": -. Private to "acheter": r.

"acheta" · 6 letters · shape VCCVCV  ·  "acheter" · 7 letters · shape VCCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • acheta ← accheta · acehta · acheat · achetta · achheta · achtea · ahceta · caheta
  • acheter ← accheter · acehter · acheetr · acheterr · achetre · achetter · achheter · achteer

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "acheta" for "acheter" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\a.ʃə.ta\ versus \a.ʃə.te\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "acheta" or "acheter" show up more?
"acheter" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #782 in our French list, against #30,886 for "acheta". 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 "acheta" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "acheter" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #302,346 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "acheta" and "acheter" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "acheta vs Athena". 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 #302,346 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