autorisévsautoriséeWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#3,821
“autorisé” frequency rank
#7,150
“autorisée” frequency rank
10971
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature autorisé autorisée
Definition Qui a de l’autorité. Féminin singulier de autorisé.

Same sound, different letters: autorisé vs autorisée

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 8 letters. autorisé runs 8 letters (VVCVCVCV) against autorisée's 9 (VVCVCVCVV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

8 ch
autorisé
9 ch
autorisée

Homophone desk: autorisé vs autorisée

This is the hard kind. autorisé and autorisée are pronounced identically (\ɔ.tɔ.ʁi.ze\) and both work as anadjective. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “autorisé” sits inside “autorisée”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 10971, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

autorisé is recorded at frequency rank #3,821, classified as anadj, pronounced \ɔ.tɔ.ʁi.ze\. autorisée is at rank #7,150, tagged as anadj, pronounced \ɔ.tɔ.ʁi.ze\.

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 10971, this pair ranks #410,963 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of autorisé vs autorisée

Shared letters: aiorstué. Private to "autorisé": -. Private to "autorisée": e.

"autorisé" · 8 letters · shape VVCVCVCV  ·  "autorisée" · 9 letters · shape VVCVCVCVV

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "autorisé" and "autorisée" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are pronounced the same (\ɔ.tɔ.ʁi.ze\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
Which is more common, "autorisé" or "autorisée"?
"autorisé" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,821 in our French list, against #7,150 for "autorisée". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

"autorisé" and "autorisée" share a sound, keep the gloss open, then jump to the headword or a nearby trap.

  • Full dictionary entry for "autorisé" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "autorisée" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #410,963 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "autorisé" and "autorisée" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "autorisée vs autorisez". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #410,963 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