célèbrevscélébréeWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: célèbre is a adjective, célébrée is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“célèbre” is an adjective and “célébrée” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#1,516
“célèbre” frequency rank
#17,670
“célébrée” frequency rank
19186
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature célèbre célébrée
Definition Qui est très connu par une population et ses médias. Participe passé féminin singulier du verbe célébrer.

Where the eye mixes célèbre and célébrée

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence. célèbre runs 7 letters (CVCVCCV) against célébrée's 8 (CVCVCCVV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

7 ch
célèbre
8 ch
célébrée

Look-alike desk: célèbre vs célébrée

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: célèbre is \se.lɛbʁ\ while célébrée is \se.le.bʁe\. 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 19186, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

célèbre is recorded at frequency rank #1,516, classified as anadj, pronounced \se.lɛbʁ\. célébrée is at rank #17,670, tagged as averb, pronounced \se.le.bʁe\.

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 19186, this pair ranks #374,528 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of célèbre vs célébrée

Shared letters: bcelré. Private to "célèbre": è. Private to "célébrée": -.

"célèbre" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCCV  ·  "célébrée" · 8 letters · shape CVCVCCVV

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "célèbre" and "célébrée" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "célèbre" is an adjective and "célébrée" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "célèbre" or "célébrée" show up more?
"célèbre" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,516 in our French list, against #17,670 for "célébrée". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "célèbre" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "célébrée" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #374,528 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "célèbre" and "célébrée" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "célébrée vs célébrés". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #374,528 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