dirigéevsdirigerTell them apart

Quick tell: dirigée is a noun, diriger is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“dirigée” is a noun and “diriger” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#5,968
“dirigée” frequency rank
#3,911
“diriger” frequency rank
9879
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature dirigée diriger
Definition Celle qui est soumise à un dirigeant. Conduire en exerçant un pouvoir, un commandement.

Same sound, different letters: dirigée vs diriger

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

7 ch
dirigée
7 ch
diriger

Ear matches; page differs - dirigée and diriger

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: dirigée and diriger carry the same recorded pronunciation, \di.ʁi.ʒe\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is anoun, 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 9879, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

dirigée is recorded at frequency rank #5,968, classified as anoun, pronounced \di.ʁi.ʒe\. diriger is at rank #3,911, tagged as averb, pronounced \di.ʁi.ʒe\.

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 9879, this pair ranks #415,069 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of dirigée vs diriger

Shared letters: degir. Private to "dirigée": é. Private to "diriger": -.

"dirigée" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVV  ·  "diriger" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • dirigerddiriger · diirger · dirgier · diriegr · dirigerr · dirigger · dirigre · dirriger

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "dirigée" for "diriger" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "dirigée" is a noun and "diriger" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "dirigée" or "diriger" show up more?
"diriger" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,911 in our French list, against #5,968 for "dirigée". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "dirigée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "diriger" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #415,069 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "dirigée" and "diriger" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "dirigée vs dirigez". 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 #415,069 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