déchiréevsdéchirerTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#22,547
“déchirée” frequency rank
#14,661
“déchirer” frequency rank
37208
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature déchirée déchirer
Definition Féminin singulier de déchiré. Rompre en tirant avec force un côté en direction opposée de celle de l’autre.

Same sound, different letters: déchirée vs déchirer

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

8 ch
déchirée
8 ch
déchirer

Same sound, different spelling - déchirée / déchirer

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: déchirée and déchirer carry the same recorded pronunciation, \de.ʃi.ʁe\. 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 37208, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

déchirée is recorded at frequency rank #22,547, classified as anadj, pronounced \de.ʃi.ʁe\. déchirer is at rank #14,661, tagged as averb, pronounced \de.ʃi.ʁe\.

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 37208, this pair ranks #264,109 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of déchirée vs déchirer

Shared letters: cdehiré. Private to "déchirée": -. Private to "déchirer": -.

"déchirée" · 8 letters · shape CVCCVCVV  ·  "déchirer" · 8 letters · shape CVCCVCVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "déchirée" and "déchirer" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "déchirée" is an adjective and "déchirer" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "déchirée" or "déchirer" show up more?
"déchirer" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #14,661 in our French list, against #22,547 for "déchirée". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "déchirée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "déchirer" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #264,109 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "déchirée" and "déchirer" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "déchirée vs décriée". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #264,109 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