affectésvsaffectsWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#9,263
“affectés” frequency rank
#48,899
“affects” frequency rank
58162
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature affectés affects
Definition Participe passé masculin pluriel du verbe affecter. Pluriel de affect.

Where the eye mixes affectés and affects

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 7 letters in sequence.

8 ch
affectés
7 ch
affects

Look-alike desk: affectés vs affects

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: affectés 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 (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 58162, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

affectés is recorded at frequency rank #9,263, classified as averb, 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 58162, this pair ranks #110,675 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of affectés vs affects

Shared letters: acefst. Private to "affectés": é. Private to "affects": -.

"affectés" · 8 letters · shape VCCVCCVC  ·  "affects" · 7 letters · shape VCCVCCC

Known mistypes of this pair

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

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "affectés" for "affects" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "affectés" is a verb and "affects" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "affectés" or "affects" show up more?
"affectés" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #9,263 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.

After this comparison

Eye-level mix-up between "affectés" and "affects" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "affectés" 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 #110,675 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "affectés" 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 #110,675 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