cultivévscultivéeWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#12,758
“cultivé” frequency rank
#17,106
“cultivée” frequency rank
29864
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cultivé cultivée
Definition Travaillé pour rendre plus fertile et productif. Féminin singulier de l’adjectif cultivé.

Same sound, different letters: cultivé vs cultivée

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 7 letters. cultivé runs 7 letters (CVCCVCV) against cultivée's 8 (CVCCVCVV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

7 ch
cultivé
8 ch
cultivée

Same sound, different spelling - cultivé / cultivée

This is the hard kind. cultivé and cultivée are pronounced identically (\kyl.ti.ve\) and both work as anadjective. 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 extra letter(s) - “cultivé” sits inside “cultivée”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 29864, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cultivé is recorded at frequency rank #12,758, classified as anadj, pronounced \kyl.ti.ve\. cultivée is at rank #17,106, tagged as anadj, pronounced \kyl.ti.ve\.

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 29864, this pair ranks #313,983 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of cultivé vs cultivée

Shared letters: ciltuvé. Private to "cultivé": -. Private to "cultivée": e.

"cultivé" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCV  ·  "cultivée" · 8 letters · shape CVCCVCVV

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "cultivé" and "cultivée" be used interchangeably?
No. They are pronounced the same (\kyl.ti.ve\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
Frequency check: "cultivé" vs "cultivée" - which ranks higher?
"cultivé" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #12,758 in our French list, against #17,106 for "cultivée". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "cultivé" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "cultivée" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #313,983 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cultivé" and "cultivée" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "captivé vs cultivé". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #313,983 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