arriérévsarrivéeConfusable pair

Quick tell: arriéré is a adjective, arrivée is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#37,661
“arriéré” frequency rank
#840
“arrivée” frequency rank
38501
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature arriéré arrivée
Definition Qui est en retard. Action d’arriver.

Where the eye mixes arriéré and arrivée

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

7 ch
arriéré
7 ch
arrivée

Why the eye confuses arriéré with arrivée

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: arriéré is \a.ʁje.ʁe\ while arrivée is \a.ʁi.ve\. 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 (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 38501, 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\. arrivée is at rank #840, tagged as anoun, 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 38501, this pair ranks #254,826 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of arriéré vs arrivée

Shared letters: airé. Private to "arriéré": -. Private to "arrivée": ev.

"arriéré" · 7 letters · shape VCCVVCV  ·  "arrivée" · 7 letters · shape VCCVCVV

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "arriéré" and "arrivée" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "arriéré" is an adjective and "arrivée" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "arriéré" or "arrivée" show up more?
"arrivée" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #840 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.

What to do next

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 "arrivée" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #254,826 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "arriéré" and "arrivée" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "arriéré vs arriverez". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #254,826 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