cultivévscultiverTell them apart

Quick tell: cultivé is a adjective, cultiver is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#12,758
“cultivé” frequency rank
#10,854
“cultiver” frequency rank
23612
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cultivé cultiver
Definition Travaillé pour rendre plus fertile et productif. Travailler une terre pour la rendre plus fertile et pour améliorer ses productions.

Same sound, different letters: cultivé vs cultiver

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 6 letters.

7 ch
cultivé
8 ch
cultiver

Ear matches; page differs - cultivé and cultiver

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: cultivé and cultiver carry the same recorded pronunciation, \kyl.ti.ve\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is anadjective, the other averb, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 23612, 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\. cultiver is at rank #10,854, tagged as averb, 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 23612, this pair ranks #351,438 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of cultivé vs cultiver

Shared letters: ciltuv. Private to "cultivé": é. Private to "cultiver": er.

"cultivé" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCV  ·  "cultiver" · 8 letters · shape CVCCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • cultiverccultiver · clutiver · culitver · culltiver · cultievr · cultiverr · cultivre · cultivver

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "cultivé" and "cultiver" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "cultivé" is an adjective and "cultiver" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "cultivé" vs "cultiver" - which ranks higher?
"cultiver" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #10,854 in our French list, against #12,758 for "cultivé". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "cultivé" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "cultiver" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #351,438 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cultivé" and "cultiver" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "captivé vs cultivé". 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 #351,438 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