controlvscontrôlezWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#13,145
“control” frequency rank
#38,728
“contrôlez” frequency rank
51873
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature control contrôlez
Definition Contrôler (diriger, dominer d’une façon précise). Deuxième personne du pluriel de l’indicatif présent de contrôler.

Where the eye mixes control and contrôlez

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence.

7 ch
control
9 ch
contrôlez

Why the eye confuses control with contrôlez

A purely visual mix-up. control (\kən.ˈtɹoʊl\) and contrôlez (\kɔ̃.tʁo.le\) 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 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 51873, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

control is recorded at frequency rank #13,145, classified as averb, pronounced \kən.ˈtɹoʊl\. contrôlez is at rank #38,728, tagged as averb, pronounced \kɔ̃.tʁo.le\.

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 51873, this pair ranks #151,821 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of control vs contrôlez

Shared letters: clnort. Private to "control": -. Private to "contrôlez": ezô.

"control" · 7 letters · shape CVCCCVC  ·  "contrôlez" · 9 letters · shape CVCCCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • controlccontrol · cnotrol · conntrol · conrtol · contorl · contrlo · controll · contrrol

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "control" and "contrôlez" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\kən.ˈtɹoʊl\ versus \kɔ̃.tʁo.le\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "control" or "contrôlez"?
"control" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #13,145 in our French list, against #38,728 for "contrôlez". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "control" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "contrôlez" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #151,821 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "control" and "contrôlez" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "contrôlez vs controller". 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 #151,821 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