assiégéevsassietteWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#27,322
“assiégée” frequency rank
#5,948
“assiette” frequency rank
33270
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature assiégée assiette
Definition Femme assiégée. Manière d’être assis, sis ou placé, assise.

Where the eye mixes assiégée and assiette

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. assiégée (VCCVVCVV) and assiette (VCCVVCCV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

8 ch
assiégée
8 ch
assiette

Visual trap between assiégée and assiette

A purely visual mix-up. assiégée (\a.sje.ʒe\) and assiette (\a.sjɛt\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 33270, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

assiégée is recorded at frequency rank #27,322, classified as anoun, pronounced \a.sje.ʒe\. assiette is at rank #5,948, tagged as anoun, pronounced \a.sjɛt\.

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 33270, this pair ranks #291,761 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of assiégée vs assiette

Shared letters: aeis. Private to "assiégée": gé. Private to "assiette": t.

"assiégée" · 8 letters · shape VCCVVCVV  ·  "assiette" · 8 letters · shape VCCVVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • assiette ← asiette · asisette · asseitte · assiete · assietet · assitete · sasiette

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "assiégée" for "assiette" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\a.sje.ʒe\ versus \a.sjɛt\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "assiégée" or "assiette"?
"assiette" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #5,948 in our French list, against #27,322 for "assiégée". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "assiégée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "assiette" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #291,761 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "assiégée" and "assiette" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "assiégée vs assiéger". 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 #291,761 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