altérévsaltéréeConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#26,954
“altéré” frequency rank
#35,804
“altérée” frequency rank
62758
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature altéré altérée
Definition Assoiffé. Féminin singulier de altéré.

Same sound, different letters: altéré vs altérée

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 6 letters. altéré runs 6 letters (VCCVCV) against altérée's 7 (VCCVCVV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
altéré
7 ch
altérée

Same sound, different spelling - altéré / altérée

This is the hard kind. altéré and altérée are pronounced identically (\al.te.ʁe\) and both work as anadjective. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “altéré” sits inside “altérée”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 62758, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

altéré is recorded at frequency rank #26,954, classified as anadj, pronounced \al.te.ʁe\. altérée is at rank #35,804, tagged as anadj, pronounced \al.te.ʁe\.

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 62758, this pair ranks #85,448 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of altéré vs altérée

Shared letters: alrté. Private to "altéré": -. Private to "altérée": e.

"altéré" · 6 letters · shape VCCVCV  ·  "altérée" · 7 letters · shape VCCVCVV

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "altéré" for "altérée" ever safe?
No. They are pronounced the same (\al.te.ʁe\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
Frequency check: "altéré" vs "altérée" - which ranks higher?
"altéré" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #26,954 in our French list, against #35,804 for "altérée". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

"altéré" and "altérée" share a sound, keep the gloss open, then jump to the headword or a nearby trap.

  • Full dictionary entry for "altéré" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "altérée" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #85,448 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "altéré" and "altérée" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "actée vs altéré". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #85,448 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