clémentvscommentTell them apart

Quick tell: clément is a adjective, comment is an adverb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“clément” is an adjective and “comment” is an adverb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#5,434
“clément” frequency rank
#143
“comment” frequency rank
5577
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature clément comment
Definition Qui pratique la clémence. De quelle manière ; de quelle sorte ; par quel procédé.

Where the eye mixes clément and comment

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

7 ch
clément
7 ch
comment

Visual trap between clément and comment

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: clément is \kle.mɑ̃\ while comment is \kɔ.mɑ̃\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs adverb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 5577, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

clément is recorded at frequency rank #5,434, classified as anadj, pronounced \kle.mɑ̃\. comment is at rank #143, tagged as anadv, pronounced \kɔ.mɑ̃\.

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 5577, this pair ranks #428,616 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of clément vs comment

Shared letters: cemnt. Private to "clément": . Private to "comment": o.

"clément" · 7 letters · shape CCVCVCC  ·  "comment" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • commentccomment · cmoment · comemnt · coment · commennt · commentt · commetn · commnet

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "clément" and "comment" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "clément" is an adjective and "comment" an adverb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "clément" or "comment" show up more?
"comment" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #143 in our French list, against #5,434 for "clément". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "clément" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "comment" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #428,616 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "clément" and "comment" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "campent vs comment". 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 #428,616 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