captéevscaptivéWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#39,691
“captée” frequency rank
#47,207
“captivé” frequency rank
86898
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature captée captivé
Definition Participe passé féminin singulier du verbe capter. Participe passé masculin singulier du verbe captiver.

Where the eye mixes captée and captivé

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence.

6 ch
captée
7 ch
captivé

Why the eye confuses captée with captivé

A purely visual mix-up. captée (\kap.te\) and captivé (\kap.ti.ve\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 86898, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

captée is recorded at frequency rank #39,691, classified as averb, pronounced \kap.te\. captivé is at rank #47,207, tagged as averb, pronounced \kap.ti.ve\.

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 86898, this pair ranks #9,034 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of captée vs captivé

Shared letters: acpté. Private to "captée": e. Private to "captivé": iv.

"captée" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVV  ·  "captivé" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCV

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "captée" and "captivé" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\kap.te\ versus \kap.ti.ve\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "captée" or "captivé"?
"captée" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #39,691 in our French list, against #47,207 for "captivé". 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 "captée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "captivé" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #9,034 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "captée" and "captivé" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "captage vs captivé". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #9,034 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