composavscomposéWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: composa is a verb, composé is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#31,894
“composa” frequency rank
#2,219
“composé” frequency rank
34113
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature composa composé
Definition Troisième personne du singulier du passé simple de composer. Qui est formé par la réunion d’éléments divers.

Where the eye mixes composa and composé

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence.

7 ch
composa
7 ch
composé

Look-alike desk: composa vs composé

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: composa is \kɔ̃.po.za\ while composé is \kɔ̃.po.ze\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by a single letter - a in “composa” becomes é in “composé”, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 34113, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

composa is recorded at frequency rank #31,894, classified as averb, pronounced \kɔ̃.po.za\. composé is at rank #2,219, tagged as anadj, pronounced \kɔ̃.po.ze\.

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 34113, this pair ranks #286,063 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of composa vs composé

Shared letters: cmops. Private to "composa": a. Private to "composé": é.

"composa" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCV  ·  "composé" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • composaccomposa · cmoposa · commposa · comopsa · compoas · compossa · compposa · compsoa

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "composa" and "composé" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "composa" is a verb and "composé" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "composa" or "composé"?
"composé" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,219 in our French list, against #31,894 for "composa". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

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 "composa" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "composé" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #286,063 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "composa" and "composé" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "compos vs composa". 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 #286,063 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