Which to use
“confère” is a verb and “contre” is a preposition - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #11,938
- “confère” frequency rank
- #109
- “contre” frequency rank
- 12047
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | confère | contre |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Première personne du singulier de l’indicatif présent de conférer. | En opposition à ; dans un choc avec ; à l’encontre de. |
Where the eye mixes confère and contre
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence.
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: confère is \kɔ̃.fɛʁ\ while contre is \kɔ̃tʁ\. 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 (verb vs preposition), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 12047, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
confère is recorded at frequency rank #11,938, classified as averb, pronounced \kɔ̃.fɛʁ\. contre is at rank #109, tagged as aprep, pronounced \kɔ̃tʁ\.
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 12047, this pair ranks #406,797 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of confère vs contre
Shared letters: cenor. Private to "confère": fè. Private to "contre": t.
"confère" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCV · "contre" · 6 letters · shape CVCCCV
Known mistypes of this pair
- contre ← ccontre · cnotre · conntre · conrte · contrre · conttre · cotnre · ocntre