Which to use
“captif” is an adjective and “captivé” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #29,268
- “captif” frequency rank
- #47,207
- “captivé” frequency rank
- 76475
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | captif | captivé |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Qui a été capturé, en particulier à la guerre. | Participe passé masculin singulier du verbe captiver. |
Where the eye mixes captif and captivé
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence.
Visual trap between captif and captivé
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: captif is \kap.tif\ while captivé is \kap.ti.ve\. 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 verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 76475, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
captif is recorded at frequency rank #29,268, classified as anadj, pronounced \kap.tif\. 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 76475, this pair ranks #31,054 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of captif vs captivé
Shared letters: acipt. Private to "captif": f. Private to "captivé": vé.
"captif" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC · "captivé" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
- captif ← acptif · capitf · capptif · captfi · captiff · capttif · catpif · ccaptif
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "captif" for "captivé" ever safe?
Which is more common, "captif" or "captivé"?
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 "captif" 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 #31,054 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "captif" and "captivé" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "captage vs captivé". 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 #31,054 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.