attaquevsattaquéeWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: attaque is a noun, attaquée is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“attaque” is a noun and “attaquée” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#957
“attaque” frequency rank
#12,105
“attaquée” frequency rank
13062
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature attaque attaquée
Definition Action violente, agression. Participe passé féminin singulier du verbe attaquer.

Where the eye mixes attaque and attaquée

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 7 letters in sequence. attaque runs 7 letters (VCCVCVV) against attaquée's 8 (VCCVCVVV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

7 ch
attaque
8 ch
attaquée

Look-alike desk: attaque vs attaquée

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: attaque is \a.tak\ while attaquée is \a.ta.ke\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 13062, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

attaque is recorded at frequency rank #957, classified as anoun, pronounced \a.tak\. attaquée is at rank #12,105, tagged as averb, pronounced \a.ta.ke\.

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 13062, this pair ranks #402,591 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of attaque vs attaquée

Shared letters: aeqtu. Private to "attaque": -. Private to "attaquée": é.

"attaque" · 7 letters · shape VCCVCVV  ·  "attaquée" · 8 letters · shape VCCVCVVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • attaque ← ataque · atatque · attaqeu · attaqque · attauqe · attqaue · tataque

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "attaque" for "attaquée" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "attaque" is a noun and "attaquée" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "attaque" vs "attaquée" - which ranks higher?
"attaque" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #957 in our French list, against #12,105 for "attaquée". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "attaque" and "attaquée" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "attaque" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "attaquée" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #402,591 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "attaque" and "attaquée" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "attaquée vs atténuée". 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 #402,591 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