affaiblievsaffaiblisWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: affaiblie is a noun, affaiblis is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#23,439
“affaiblie” frequency rank
#33,102
“affaiblis” frequency rank
56541
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature affaiblie affaiblis
Definition Personne physiquement ou moralement diminuée ou amoindrie, personne en état de faiblesse intellectuelle. Masculin pluriel de affaibli.

Where the eye mixes affaiblie and affaiblis

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 8 letters in sequence. affaiblie (VCCVVCCVV) and affaiblis (VCCVVCCVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

9 ch
affaiblie
9 ch
affaiblis

Visual trap between affaiblie and affaiblis

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: affaiblie is \a.fe.bli\ while affaiblis is \a.fɛ.bli\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by a single letter - e in “affaiblie” becomes s in “affaiblis”, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 56541, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

affaiblie is recorded at frequency rank #23,439, classified as anoun, pronounced \a.fe.bli\. affaiblis is at rank #33,102, tagged as anadj, pronounced \a.fɛ.bli\.

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 56541, this pair ranks #120,473 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of affaiblie vs affaiblis

Shared letters: abfil. Private to "affaiblie": e. Private to "affaiblis": s.

"affaiblie" · 9 letters · shape VCCVVCCVV  ·  "affaiblis" · 9 letters · shape VCCVVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • affaiblie ← afafiblie · afaiblie · affabilie · affaibblie · affaibile · affaiblei · affaibllie · affailbie
  • affaiblis ← afafiblis · afaiblis · affabilis · affaibblis · affaibils · affaibliss · affaibllis · affaiblsi

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "affaiblie" and "affaiblis" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "affaiblie" is a noun and "affaiblis" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "affaiblie" or "affaiblis" show up more?
"affaiblie" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #23,439 in our French list, against #33,102 for "affaiblis". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "affaiblie" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "affaiblis" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #120,473 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "affaiblie" and "affaiblis" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "affaiblies vs affaiblis". 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 #120,473 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