autorisévsautoritéTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#3,821
“autorisé” frequency rank
#1,506
“autorité” frequency rank
5327
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature autorisé autorité
Definition Qui a de l’autorité. Pouvoir ou droit de commander, d’obliger quelqu’un à quelque chose.

Where the eye mixes autorisé and autorité

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 7 letters in sequence. autorisé and autorité follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (VVCVCVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

8 ch
autorisé
8 ch
autorité

Look-alike desk: autorisé vs autorité

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: autorisé is \ɔ.tɔ.ʁi.ze\ while autorité is \o.tɔ.ʁi.te\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by a single letter - s in “autorisé” becomes t in “autorité”, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 5327, 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\. autorité is at rank #1,506, tagged as anoun, pronounced \o.tɔ.ʁi.te\.

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 5327, this pair ranks #429,317 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of autorisé vs autorité

Shared letters: aiortué. Private to "autorisé": s. Private to "autorité": -.

"autorisé" · 8 letters · shape VVCVCVCV  ·  "autorité" · 8 letters · shape VVCVCVCV

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "autorisé" for "autorité" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "autorisé" is an adjective and "autorité" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "autorisé" vs "autorité" - which ranks higher?
"autorité" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,506 in our French list, against #3,821 for "autorisé". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "autorisé" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "autorité" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #429,317 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "autorisé" and "autorité" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "autorisé vs autorisez". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #429,317 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