arrivévsarriverWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#995
“arrivé” frequency rank
#839
“arriver” frequency rank
1834
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature arrivé arriver
Definition Qui est arrivé. Parvenir à destination.

Same sound, different letters: arrivé vs arriver

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 5 letters.

6 ch
arrivé
7 ch
arriver

Same sound, different spelling - arrivé / arriver

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: arrivé and arriver carry the same recorded pronunciation, \a.ʁi.ve\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is anadjective, the other averb, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 1834, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

arrivé is recorded at frequency rank #995, classified as anadj, pronounced \a.ʁi.ve\. arriver is at rank #839, tagged as averb, 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 1834, this pair ranks #437,292 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of arrivé vs arriver

Shared letters: airv. Private to "arrivé": é. Private to "arriver": e.

"arrivé" · 6 letters · shape VCCVCV  ·  "arriver" · 7 letters · shape VCCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • arriverarirver · ariver · arrievr · arriverr · arrivre · arrivver · arrvier · rariver

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "arrivé" and "arriver" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "arrivé" is an adjective and "arriver" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "arrivé" vs "arriver" - which ranks higher?
"arriver" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #839 in our French list, against #995 for "arrivé". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Sound matches; spelling doesn't. Use the exits below to lock the right form or check a cousin pair.

  • Full dictionary entry for "arrivé" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "arriver" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #437,292 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "arrivé" and "arriver" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "arrivage vs arrivé". 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 #437,292 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