completevscomplétéeConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#21,888
“complete” frequency rank
#15,334
“complétée” frequency rank
37222
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature complete complétée
Definition Complet, complète ; à quoi il ne manque aucune des parties nécessaires. Féminin singulier de complété.

Where the eye mixes complete and complétée

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 7 letters in sequence.

8 ch
complete
9 ch
complétée

Visual trap between complete and complétée

A purely visual mix-up. complete (\kəmˈpliːt\) and complétée (\kɔ̃.ple.te\) 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 37222, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

complete is recorded at frequency rank #21,888, classified as anadj, pronounced \kəmˈpliːt\. complétée is at rank #15,334, tagged as anadj, pronounced \kɔ̃.ple.te\.

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 37222, this pair ranks #264,033 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of complete vs complétée

Shared letters: celmopt. Private to "complete": -. Private to "complétée": é.

"complete" · 8 letters · shape CVCCCVCV  ·  "complétée" · 9 letters · shape CVCCCVCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • completeccomplete · cmoplete · comlpete · commplete · compelte · compleet · complette · compllete

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "complete" and "complétée" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\kəmˈpliːt\ versus \kɔ̃.ple.te\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "complete" or "complétée" show up more?
"complétée" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #15,334 in our French list, against #21,888 for "complete". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "complete" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "complétée" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #264,033 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "complete" and "complétée" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "complete vs complex". 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 #264,033 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