dirigervsdirigezWhat's the difference?

Which to use

“diriger” and “dirigez” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#3,911
“diriger” frequency rank
#40,214
“dirigez” frequency rank
44125
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature diriger dirigez
Definition Conduire en exerçant un pouvoir, un commandement. Deuxième personne du pluriel du présent de l’indicatif de diriger.

Same sound, different letters: diriger vs dirigez

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

7 ch
diriger
7 ch
dirigez

Ear matches; page differs - diriger and dirigez

This is the hard kind. diriger and dirigez are pronounced identically (\di.ʁi.ʒe\) and both work as averb. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They differ by a single letter - r in “diriger” becomes z in “dirigez”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 44125, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

diriger is recorded at frequency rank #3,911, classified as averb, pronounced \di.ʁi.ʒe\. dirigez is at rank #40,214, 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 44125, this pair ranks #212,860 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of diriger vs dirigez

Shared letters: degir. Private to "diriger": -. Private to "dirigez": z.

"diriger" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVC  ·  "dirigez" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • dirigerddiriger · diirger · dirgier · diriegr · dirigerr · dirigger · dirigre · dirriger
  • dirigezddirigez · diirgez · dirgiez · diriegz · dirigezz · diriggez · dirigze · dirrigez

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "diriger" and "dirigez" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are pronounced the same (\di.ʁi.ʒe\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
Frequency check: "diriger" vs "dirigez" - which ranks higher?
"diriger" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,911 in our French list, against #40,214 for "dirigez". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "diriger" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "dirigez" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #212,860 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "diriger" and "dirigez" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "dirigera 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 #212,860 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