contactvscontactentConfusable pair

Quick tell: contact is a noun, contactent is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“contact” is a noun and “contactent” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#1,253
“contact” frequency rank
#47,807
“contactent” frequency rank
49060
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature contact contactent
Definition Action de toucher physiquement. Troisième personne du pluriel de l’indicatif présent de contacter.

Same sound, different letters: contact vs contactent

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 7 letters.

7 ch
contact
10 ch
contactent

Ear matches; page differs - contact and contactent

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: contact and contactent carry the same recorded pronunciation, \kɔ̃.takt\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is anoun, the other averb, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They differ by 3 extra letter(s) - “contact” sits inside “contactent”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 49060, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

contact is recorded at frequency rank #1,253, classified as anoun, pronounced \kɔ̃.takt\. contactent is at rank #47,807, tagged as averb, pronounced \kɔ̃.takt\.

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 49060, this pair ranks #173,797 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of contact vs contactent

Shared letters: acnot. Private to "contact": -. Private to "contactent": e.

"contact" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCC  ·  "contactent" · 10 letters · shape CVCCVCCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • contactccontact · cnotact · conatct · conntact · contacct · contactt · contatc · contcat
  • contactentccontactent · cnotactent · conatctent · conntactent · contacctent · contacetnt · contactennt · contactentt

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "contact" for "contactent" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "contact" is a noun and "contactent" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "contact" or "contactent"?
"contact" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,253 in our French list, against #47,807 for "contactent". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Sound matches; spelling doesn't. Use the exits below to lock the right form or check a cousin pair.

  • Full dictionary entry for "contact" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "contactent" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #173,797 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "contact" and "contactent" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "contactent vs contrastent". 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 #173,797 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