achevévsactiveTell them apart

Quick tell: achevé is a adjective, active is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#7,267
“achevé” frequency rank
#2,861
“active” frequency rank
10128
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature achevé active
Definition Qui est accompli, parfait, qui a toutes les bonnes qualités de son genre. Partie de l'armée qui, en temps de paix, est maintenue en état de combattre immédiatement.

Where the eye mixes achevé and active

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

6 ch
achevé
6 ch
active

Look-alike desk: achevé vs active

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: achevé is \a.ʃə.ve\ while active is \ak.tiv\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 10128, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

achevé is recorded at frequency rank #7,267, classified as anadj, pronounced \a.ʃə.ve\. active is at rank #2,861, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ak.tiv\.

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 10128, this pair ranks #414,110 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of achevé vs active

Shared letters: acev. Private to "achevé": . Private to "active": it.

"achevé" · 6 letters · shape VCCVCV  ·  "active" · 6 letters · shape VCCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • activeacctive · acitve · actiev · activve · acttive · actvie · atcive · cative

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "achevé" and "active" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "achevé" is an adjective and "active" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "achevé" or "active"?
"active" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,861 in our French list, against #7,267 for "achevé". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "achevé" and "active" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "achevé" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "active" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #414,110 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "achevé" and "active" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "achevé vs actée". 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 #414,110 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