digestifsvsdigestiveWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: digestifs is a adjective, digestive is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“digestifs” is an adjective and “digestive” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#33,212
“digestifs” frequency rank
#37,273
“digestive” frequency rank
70485
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature digestifs digestive
Definition Masculin pluriel de digestif. Biscuit anglais, à réputation antiacide (contenant anciennement du bicarbonate de soude).

Where the eye mixes digestifs and digestive

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 7 letters in sequence. digestifs (CVCVCCVCC) and digestive (CVCVCCVCV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

9 ch
digestifs
9 ch
digestive

Why the eye confuses digestifs with digestive

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: digestifs is \di.ʒɛs.tif\ while digestive is \daj.ʒɛs.tiv\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 70485, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

digestifs is recorded at frequency rank #33,212, classified as anadj, pronounced \di.ʒɛs.tif\. digestive is at rank #37,273, tagged as anoun, pronounced \daj.ʒɛs.tiv\.

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 70485, this pair ranks #51,164 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of digestifs vs digestive

Shared letters: degist. Private to "digestifs": f. Private to "digestive": v.

"digestifs" · 9 letters · shape CVCVCCVCC  ·  "digestive" · 9 letters · shape CVCVCCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • digestifs ← ddigestifs · dgiestifs · diegstifs · digesitfs · digesstifs · digestfis · digestiffs · digestifss
  • digestive ← ddigestive · dgiestive · diegstive · digesitve · digesstive · digestiev · digestivve · digesttive

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "digestifs" and "digestive" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "digestifs" is an adjective and "digestive" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "digestifs" vs "digestive" - which ranks higher?
"digestifs" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #33,212 in our French list, against #37,273 for "digestive". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "digestifs" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "digestive" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #51,164 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "digestifs" and "digestive" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "digeste vs digestive". 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 #51,164 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