contactentvscontacterWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#47,807
“contactent” frequency rank
#4,740
“contacter” frequency rank
52547
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature contactent contacter
Definition Troisième personne du pluriel de l’indicatif présent de contacter. Entrer en contact, en relation avec.

Where the eye mixes contactent and contacter

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 8 letters in sequence.

10 ch
contactent
9 ch
contacter

Visual trap between contactent and contacter

A purely visual mix-up. contactent (\kɔ̃.takt\) and contacter (\kɔ̃.tak.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 52547, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

contactent is recorded at frequency rank #47,807, classified as averb, pronounced \kɔ̃.takt\. contacter is at rank #4,740, tagged as averb, pronounced \kɔ̃.tak.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 52547, this pair ranks #146,990 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of contactent vs contacter

Shared letters: acenot. Private to "contactent": -. Private to "contacter": r.

"contactent" · 10 letters · shape CVCCVCCVCC  ·  "contacter" · 9 letters · shape CVCCVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • contactentccontactent · cnotactent · conatctent · conntactent · contacctent · contacetnt · contactennt · contactentt
  • contacterccontacter · cnotacter · conatcter · conntacter · contaccter · contacetr · contacterr · contactre

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "contactent" for "contacter" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\kɔ̃.takt\ versus \kɔ̃.tak.te\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "contactent" or "contacter" show up more?
"contacter" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #4,740 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

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "contactent" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "contacter" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #146,990 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "contactent" and "contacter" 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 #146,990 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