approchéevsapprocherConfusable pair

Quick tell: approchée is a adjective, approcher is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“approchée” is an adjective and “approcher” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#28,447
“approchée” frequency rank
#6,165
“approcher” frequency rank
34612
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature approchée approcher
Definition Féminin singulier de approché. Mettre proche, mettre près.

Same sound, different letters: approchée vs approcher

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 8 letters.

9 ch
approchée
9 ch
approcher

Homophone desk: approchée vs approcher

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: approchée and approcher carry the same recorded pronunciation, \a.pʁɔ.ʃe\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is anadjective, the other averb, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 34612, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

approchée is recorded at frequency rank #28,447, classified as anadj, pronounced \a.pʁɔ.ʃe\. approcher is at rank #6,165, tagged as averb, pronounced \a.pʁɔ.ʃe\.

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 34612, this pair ranks #282,605 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of approchée vs approcher

Shared letters: acehopr. Private to "approchée": é. Private to "approcher": -.

"approchée" · 9 letters · shape VCCCVCCVV  ·  "approcher" · 9 letters · shape VCCCVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • approcherapporcher · apprcoher · approccher · approcehr · approcherr · approchher · approchre · approhcer

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "approchée" and "approcher" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "approchée" is an adjective and "approcher" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "approchée" or "approcher" show up more?
"approcher" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #6,165 in our French list, against #28,447 for "approchée". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

You've separated the homophone pair "approchée" / "approcher". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.

  • Full dictionary entry for "approchée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "approcher" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #282,605 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "approchée" and "approcher" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "approchée vs approchez". 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 #282,605 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