arriérévsarrivéTell them apart

Which to use

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

#37,661
“arriéré” frequency rank
#995
“arrivé” frequency rank
38656
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature arriéré arrivé
Definition Qui est en retard. Qui est arrivé.

Where the eye mixes arriéré and arrivé

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence.

7 ch
arriéré
6 ch
arrivé

Visual trap between arriéré and arrivé

A purely visual mix-up. arriéré (\a.ʁje.ʁe\) and arrivé (\a.ʁi.ve\) 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 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 38656, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

arriéré is recorded at frequency rank #37,661, classified as anadj, pronounced \a.ʁje.ʁe\. arrivé is at rank #995, tagged as anadj, pronounced \a.ʁi.ve\.

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 38656, this pair ranks #253,732 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of arriéré vs arrivé

Shared letters: airé. Private to "arriéré": -. Private to "arrivé": v.

"arriéré" · 7 letters · shape VCCVVCV  ·  "arrivé" · 6 letters · shape VCCVCV

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "arriéré" for "arrivé" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\a.ʁje.ʁe\ versus \a.ʁi.ve\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "arriéré" vs "arrivé" - which ranks higher?
"arrivé" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #995 in our French list, against #37,661 for "arriéré". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "arriéré" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "arrivé" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #253,732 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "arriéré" and "arrivé" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "arriéré vs arriverez". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #253,732 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