adaptevsadoptésWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: adapte is a verb, adoptés is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#10,269
“adapte” frequency rank
#16,536
“adoptés” frequency rank
26805
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature adapte adoptés
Definition Première personne du singulier de l’indicatif présent du verbe adapter. Masculin pluriel de adopté.

Where the eye mixes adapte and adoptés

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

6 ch
adapte
7 ch
adoptés

Visual trap between adapte and adoptés

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: adapte is \a.dapt\ while adoptés is \a.dɔp.te\. 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 (verb vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 26805, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

adapte is recorded at frequency rank #10,269, classified as averb, pronounced \a.dapt\. adoptés is at rank #16,536, tagged as anadj, pronounced \a.dɔp.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 26805, this pair ranks #332,762 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of adapte vs adoptés

Shared letters: adpt. Private to "adapte": e. Private to "adoptés": osé.

"adapte" · 6 letters · shape VCVCCV  ·  "adoptés" · 7 letters · shape VCVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • adapteaadpte · adapet · adappte · adaptte · adatpe · addapte · adpate · daapte

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "adapte" for "adoptés" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "adapte" is a verb and "adoptés" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "adapte" or "adoptés" show up more?
"adapte" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #10,269 in our French list, against #16,536 for "adoptés". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "adapte" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "adoptés" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #332,762 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "adapte" and "adoptés" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "adoptera vs adoptés". 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 #332,762 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