Which to use
“affect” is a noun and “affectés” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #37,638
- “affect” frequency rank
- #9,263
- “affectés” frequency rank
- 46901
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | affect | affectés |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Disposition affective élémentaire : humeur, émotion, sentiment, motivation, passion. | Participe passé masculin pluriel du verbe affecter. |
Where the eye mixes affect and affectés
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence.
Visual trap between affect and affectés
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: affect is \a.fɛkt\ while affectés is \a.fɛk.te\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “affect” sits inside “affectés”, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 46901, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
affect is recorded at frequency rank #37,638, classified as anoun, pronounced \a.fɛkt\. affectés is at rank #9,263, tagged as averb, pronounced \a.fɛk.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 46901, this pair ranks #191,156 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of affect vs affectés
Shared letters: aceft. Private to "affect": -. Private to "affectés": sé.
"affect" · 6 letters · shape VCCVCC · "affectés" · 8 letters · shape VCCVCCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- affect ← afect · afefct · affcet · affecct · affectt · affetc · fafect
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "affect" for "affectés" ever safe?
In ordinary French text, does "affect" or "affectés" show up more?
Useful next steps
Eye-level mix-up between "affect" and "affectés" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "affect" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "affectés" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #191,156 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "affect" and "affectés" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "affect vs affects". 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 #191,156 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.