disputéevsdisputerWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#17,676
“disputée” frequency rank
#7,681
“disputer” frequency rank
25357
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature disputée disputer
Definition Féminin singulier de disputé. Être en discussion plus ou moins vive à propos d’opinions, d’intérêts.

Same sound, different letters: disputée vs disputer

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

8 ch
disputée
8 ch
disputer

Same sound, different spelling - disputée / disputer

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: disputée and disputer carry the same recorded pronunciation, \dis.py.te\. 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 25357, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

disputée is recorded at frequency rank #17,676, classified as anadj, pronounced \dis.py.te\. disputer is at rank #7,681, tagged as averb, pronounced \dis.py.te\.

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 25357, this pair ranks #341,332 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of disputée vs disputer

Shared letters: deipstu. Private to "disputée": é. Private to "disputer": r.

"disputée" · 8 letters · shape CVCCVCVV  ·  "disputer" · 8 letters · shape CVCCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • disputer ← ddisputer · dipsuter · dispputer · disptuer · dispuetr · disputerr · disputre · disputter

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "disputée" for "disputer" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "disputée" is an adjective and "disputer" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "disputée" or "disputer" show up more?
"disputer" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #7,681 in our French list, against #17,676 for "disputée". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "disputée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "disputer" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #341,332 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "disputée" and "disputer" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "disputée vs disputera". 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 #341,332 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