affichervsaffirmerWhat's the difference?

Which to use

“afficher” and “affirmer” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#5,099
“afficher” frequency rank
#4,462
“affirmer” frequency rank
9561
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature afficher affirmer
Definition Apposer une affiche. Assurer, soutenir qu’une chose est vraie.

Where the eye mixes afficher and affirmer

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

8 ch
afficher
8 ch
affirmer

Look-alike desk: afficher vs affirmer

A purely visual mix-up. afficher (\a.fi.ʃe\) and affirmer (\a.fiʁ.me\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 9561, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

afficher is recorded at frequency rank #5,099, classified as averb, pronounced \a.fi.ʃe\. affirmer is at rank #4,462, tagged as averb, pronounced \a.fiʁ.me\.

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 9561, this pair ranks #416,221 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of afficher vs affirmer

Shared letters: aefir. Private to "afficher": ch. Private to "affirmer": m.

"afficher" · 8 letters · shape VCCVCCVC  ·  "affirmer" · 8 letters · shape VCCVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • afficheraffciher · afficcher · afficehr · afficherr · affichher · affichre · affihcer · aficher
  • affirmeraffimrer · affiremr · affirmerr · affirmmer · affirmre · affirrmer · affrimer · afifrmer

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "afficher" for "affirmer" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\a.fi.ʃe\ versus \a.fiʁ.me\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "afficher" or "affirmer"?
"affirmer" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #4,462 in our French list, against #5,099 for "afficher". 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 "afficher" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "affirmer" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #416,221 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "afficher" and "affirmer" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "afficher vs affichera". 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 #416,221 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