agrafevsagrégéWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#48,312
“agrafe” frequency rank
#20,041
“agrégé” frequency rank
68353
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature agrafe agrégé
Definition Petit accessoire métallique servant à réunir deux éléments d’un même objet. Se dit des parties d’une plante agglomérées sur une petite surface.

Where the spellings diverge

Shared letters are muted; the letters that actually set agrafe and agrégé apart are highlighted. They share 3 letters in sequence, which is exactly why the eye skips the difference.

6 ch
agrafe
6 ch
agrégé

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: agrafe is \a.ɡʁaf\ while agrégé is \a.ɡʁe.ʒe\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 68353, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

agrafe is recorded at frequency rank #48,312, classified as anoun, pronounced \a.ɡʁaf\. agrégé is at rank #20,041, tagged as anadj, pronounced \a.ɡʁe.ʒe\.

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 68353, this pair ranks #59,530 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of agrafe vs agrégé

Shared letters: agr. Private to "agrafe": ef. Private to "agrégé": é.

"agrafe" · 6 letters · shape VCCVCV  ·  "agrégé" · 6 letters · shape VCCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • agrafeagarfe · aggrafe · agraef · agraffe · agrfae · agrrafe · argafe · garafe

Frequency comparison

agrafe#48,312
agrégé#20,041

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "agrafe" and "agrégé" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "agrafe" is a noun and "agrégé" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "agrafe" or "agrégé"?
"agrégé" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #20,041 in our French list, against #48,312 for "agrafe". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Remembering agrafe vs agrégé

The fastest way to pick the right one every time.

  • Check the role first: if you need a noun, it's “agrafe”; for an adjective, it's “agrégé”.
  • See each word in full, definition, IPA, etymology and its other confusables. Full “agrafe” entry
  • Browse more pairs most likely to be confused. Most confusable

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list