autorisévsautriceWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#3,821
“autorisé” frequency rank
#44,315
“autrice” frequency rank
48136
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature autorisé autrice
Definition Qui a de l’autorité. Celle qui est à l’origine de quelque chose.

Where the eye mixes autorisé and autrice

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. autorisé runs 8 letters (VVCVCVCV) against autrice's 7 (VVCCVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

8 ch
autorisé
7 ch
autrice

Why the eye confuses autorisé with autrice

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: autorisé is \ɔ.tɔ.ʁi.ze\ while autrice is \o.tʁis\. 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 (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 48136, 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\. autrice is at rank #44,315, tagged as anoun, pronounced \o.tʁis\.

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 48136, this pair ranks #181,365 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of autorisé vs autrice

Shared letters: airtu. Private to "autorisé": osé. Private to "autrice": ce.

"autorisé" · 8 letters · shape VVCVCVCV  ·  "autrice" · 7 letters · shape VVCCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • autrice ← aturice · aurtice · autirce · autrcie · autricce · autriec · autrrice · auttrice

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "autorisé" and "autrice" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "autorisé" is an adjective and "autrice" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "autorisé" vs "autrice" - which ranks higher?
"autorisé" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,821 in our French list, against #44,315 for "autrice". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Eye-level mix-up between "autorisé" and "autrice" 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 "autrice" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #181,365 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "autorisé" and "autrice" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "amatrice vs autrice". 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 #181,365 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