addictionvsadductionTell them apart

Which to use

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

#14,840
“addiction” frequency rank
#44,843
“adduction” frequency rank
59683
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature addiction adduction
Definition Dépendance physique à une drogue, entraînant une perte de liberté d'action. Action d’amener.

Where the eye mixes addiction and adduction

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 8 letters in sequence. addiction and adduction follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (VCCVCCVVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

9 ch
addiction
9 ch
adduction

Look-alike desk: addiction vs adduction

A purely visual mix-up. addiction (\a.dik.sjɔ̃\) and adduction (\a.dyk.sjɔ̃\) 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 a single letter - i in “addiction” becomes u in “adduction”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 59683, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

addiction is recorded at frequency rank #14,840, classified as anoun, pronounced \a.dik.sjɔ̃\. adduction is at rank #44,843, tagged as anoun, pronounced \a.dyk.sjɔ̃\.

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 59683, this pair ranks #101,757 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of addiction vs adduction

Shared letters: acdinot. Private to "addiction": -. Private to "adduction": u.

"addiction" · 9 letters · shape VCCVCCVVC  ·  "adduction" · 9 letters · shape VCCVCCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • addictionaddcition · addicction · addiciton · addictino · addictionn · addictoin · addicttion · additcion
  • adductionaddcution · adducction · adduciton · adductino · adductionn · adductoin · adducttion · addutcion

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "addiction" and "adduction" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\a.dik.sjɔ̃\ versus \a.dyk.sjɔ̃\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "addiction" vs "adduction" - which ranks higher?
"addiction" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #14,840 in our French list, against #44,843 for "adduction". 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 "addiction" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "adduction" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #101,757 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "addiction" and "adduction" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "addictions vs adduction". 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 #101,757 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