Which to use
“allumée” and “allumette” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #18,390
- “allumée” frequency rank
- #38,639
- “allumette” frequency rank
- 57029
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | allumée | allumette |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Folle furieuse. | Bâtonnet de bois ou de carton recouvert, à une extrémité, d’un produit inflammable. |
Where the eye mixes allumée and allumette
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence. allumée runs 7 letters (VCCVCVV) against allumette's 9 (VCCVCVCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Visual trap between allumée and allumette
A purely visual mix-up. allumée (\a.ly.me\) and allumette (\a.ly.mɛt\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 57029, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
allumée is recorded at frequency rank #18,390, classified as anoun, pronounced \a.ly.me\. allumette is at rank #38,639, tagged as anoun, pronounced \a.ly.mɛt\.
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 57029, this pair ranks #117,456 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of allumée vs allumette
Shared letters: aelmu. Private to "allumée": é. Private to "allumette": t.
"allumée" · 7 letters · shape VCCVCVV · "allumette" · 9 letters · shape VCCVCVCCV
Known mistypes of this pair
- allumette ← allmuette · alluemtte · allumete · allumetet · allummette · allumtete · alulmette · alumette
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "allumée" for "allumette" ever safe?
In ordinary French text, does "allumée" or "allumette" show up more?
After this comparison
Eye-level mix-up between "allumée" and "allumette" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "allumée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "allumette" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #117,456 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "allumée" and "allumette" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "allument vs allumette". 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 #117,456 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.