contractervscontractésWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#19,791
“contracter” frequency rank
#44,952
“contractés” frequency rank
64743
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature contracter contractés
Definition Conclure un contrat. Masculin pluriel de contracté.

Same sound, different letters: contracter vs contractés

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 8 letters.

10 ch
contracter
10 ch
contractés

Same sound, different spelling - contracter / contractés

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: contracter and contractés carry the same recorded pronunciation, \kɔ̃.tʁak.te\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is averb, the other anadjective, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 64743, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

contracter is recorded at frequency rank #19,791, classified as averb, pronounced \kɔ̃.tʁak.te\. contractés is at rank #44,952, tagged as anadj, pronounced \kɔ̃.tʁak.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 64743, this pair ranks #75,557 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of contracter vs contractés

Shared letters: acnort. Private to "contracter": e. Private to "contractés": .

"contracter" · 10 letters · shape CVCCCVCCVC  ·  "contractés" · 10 letters · shape CVCCCVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • contracterccontracter · cnotracter · conntracter · conrtacter · contarcter · contraccter · contracetr · contracterr

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "contracter" and "contractés" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "contracter" is a verb and "contractés" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "contracter" or "contractés" show up more?
"contracter" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #19,791 in our French list, against #44,952 for "contractés". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

You've separated the homophone pair "contracter" / "contractés". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.

  • Full dictionary entry for "contracter" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "contractés" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #75,557 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "contracter" and "contractés" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "contractés vs contrastés". 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 #75,557 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