affectéevsaffectsWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: affectée is a adjective, affects is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#12,296
“affectée” frequency rank
#48,899
“affects” frequency rank
61195
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature affectée affects
Definition Féminin singulier de affecté. Pluriel de affect.

Where the eye mixes affectée and affects

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence.

8 ch
affectée
7 ch
affects

Why the eye confuses affectée with affects

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: affectée is \a.fɛk.te\ while affects is \a.fɛkt\. 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 (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 61195, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

affectée is recorded at frequency rank #12,296, classified as anadj, pronounced \a.fɛk.te\. affects is at rank #48,899, tagged as anoun, pronounced \a.fɛkt\.

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 61195, this pair ranks #93,579 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of affectée vs affects

Shared letters: aceft. Private to "affectée": é. Private to "affects": s.

"affectée" · 8 letters · shape VCCVCCVV  ·  "affects" · 7 letters · shape VCCVCCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • affectsafects · afefcts · affcets · affeccts · affecst · affectss · affectts · affetcs

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "affectée" and "affects" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "affectée" is an adjective and "affects" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "affectée" vs "affects" - which ranks higher?
"affectée" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #12,296 in our French list, against #48,899 for "affects". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "affectée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "affects" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #93,579 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "affectée" and "affects" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "affectifs 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 #93,579 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