Which to use
“adopté” and “adoptive” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #3,121
- “adopté” frequency rank
- #29,213
- “adoptive” frequency rank
- 32334
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | adopté | adoptive |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Qui est légalement adopté. | Féminin singulier de adoptif. |
Where the eye mixes adopté and adoptive
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. adopté runs 6 letters (VCVCCV) against adoptive's 8 (VCVCCVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Why the eye confuses adopté with adoptive
A purely visual mix-up. adopté (\a.dɔp.te\) and adoptive (\a.dɔp.tiv\) 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 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 32334, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
adopté is recorded at frequency rank #3,121, classified as anadj, pronounced \a.dɔp.te\. adoptive is at rank #29,213, tagged as anadj, pronounced \a.dɔp.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 32334, this pair ranks #297,970 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of adopté vs adoptive
Shared letters: adopt. Private to "adopté": é. Private to "adoptive": eiv.
"adopté" · 6 letters · shape VCVCCV · "adoptive" · 8 letters · shape VCVCCVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
- adoptive ← addoptive · adopitve · adopptive · adoptiev · adoptivve · adopttive · adoptvie · adotpive
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "adopté" for "adoptive" ever safe?
Which is more common, "adopté" or "adoptive"?
After this comparison
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "adopté" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "adoptive" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #297,970 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "adopté" and "adoptive" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "adoptifs vs adoptive". 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 #297,970 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.