contaminéesvscontaminerWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#40,690
“contaminées” frequency rank
#27,750
“contaminer” frequency rank
68440
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature contaminées contaminer
Definition Participe passé féminin pluriel de contaminer. Souiller par le contact d’un objet impur ou malpropre.

Same sound, different letters: contaminées vs contaminer

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 9 letters. contaminées runs 11 letters (CVCCVCVCVVC) against contaminer's 10 (CVCCVCVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

11 ch
contaminées
10 ch
contaminer

Ear matches; page differs - contaminées and contaminer

This is the hard kind. contaminées and contaminer are pronounced identically (\kɔ̃.ta.mi.ne\) and both work as averb. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 68440, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

contaminées is recorded at frequency rank #40,690, classified as averb, pronounced \kɔ̃.ta.mi.ne\. contaminer is at rank #27,750, tagged as averb, pronounced \kɔ̃.ta.mi.ne\.

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 68440, this pair ranks #59,187 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of contaminées vs contaminer

Shared letters: aceimnot. Private to "contaminées": sé. Private to "contaminer": r.

"contaminées" · 11 letters · shape CVCCVCVCVVC  ·  "contaminer" · 10 letters · shape CVCCVCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • contaminer ← ccontaminer · cnotaminer · conatminer · conntaminer · contaimner · contamienr · contaminerr · contaminner

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "contaminées" and "contaminer" be used interchangeably?
No. They are pronounced the same (\kɔ̃.ta.mi.ne\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
In ordinary French text, does "contaminées" or "contaminer" show up more?
"contaminer" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #27,750 in our French list, against #40,690 for "contaminées". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "contaminées" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "contaminer" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #59,187 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "contaminées" and "contaminer" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "contamine vs contaminées". 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 #59,187 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