cultivéevscultiverWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#17,106
“cultivée” frequency rank
#10,854
“cultiver” frequency rank
27960
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cultivée cultiver
Definition Féminin singulier de l’adjectif cultivé. Travailler une terre pour la rendre plus fertile et pour améliorer ses productions.

Same sound, different letters: cultivée vs cultiver

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 7 letters. cultivée (CVCCVCVV) and cultiver (CVCCVCVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

8 ch
cultivée
8 ch
cultiver

Ear matches; page differs - cultivée and cultiver

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: cultivée 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 share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 27960, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cultivée is recorded at frequency rank #17,106, 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 27960, this pair ranks #325,728 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of cultivée vs cultiver

Shared letters: ceiltuv. Private to "cultivée": é. Private to "cultiver": r.

"cultivée" · 8 letters · shape CVCCVCVV  ·  "cultiver" · 8 letters · shape CVCCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

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

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "cultivée" and "cultiver" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "cultivée" is an adjective and "cultiver" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "cultivée" or "cultiver" show up more?
"cultiver" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #10,854 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

"cultivée" and "cultiver" share a sound, keep the gloss open, then jump to the headword or a nearby trap.

  • Full dictionary entry for "cultivée" 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 #325,728 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cultivée" and "cultiver" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "cultivée vs cultivent". 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 #325,728 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