contrôlervscontrollerWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#2,991
“contrôler” frequency rank
#46,674
“controller” frequency rank
49665
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature contrôler controller
Definition Vérifier la conformité, la régularité ou l'exactitude. Régulateur.

Where the eye mixes contrôler and controller

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

9 ch
contrôler
10 ch
controller

Look-alike desk: contrôler vs controller

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: contrôler is \kɔ̃.tʁo.le\ while controller is \kən.ˈtɹoʊ.lɚ\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 49665, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

contrôler is recorded at frequency rank #2,991, classified as averb, pronounced \kɔ̃.tʁo.le\. controller is at rank #46,674, tagged as anoun, pronounced \kən.ˈtɹoʊ.lɚ\.

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 49665, this pair ranks #168,821 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of contrôler vs controller

Shared letters: celnort. Private to "contrôler": ô. Private to "controller": -.

"contrôler" · 9 letters · shape CVCCCVCVC  ·  "controller" · 10 letters · shape CVCCCVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • controllerccontroller · cnotroller · conntroller · conrtoller · contorller · contrloler · controlelr · controllerr

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "contrôler" for "controller" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "contrôler" is a verb and "controller" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "contrôler" vs "controller" - which ranks higher?
"contrôler" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,991 in our French list, against #46,674 for "controller". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "contrôler" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "controller" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #168,821 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "contrôler" and "controller" 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 #168,821 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