divorcéevsdivorcerWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#27,408
“divorcée” frequency rank
#23,836
“divorcer” frequency rank
51244
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature divorcée divorcer
Definition Femme qui a divorcé. Prononcer, demander, obtenir la dissolution d'un mariage.

Same sound, different letters: divorcée vs divorcer

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

8 ch
divorcée
8 ch
divorcer

Ear matches; page differs - divorcée and divorcer

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: divorcée and divorcer carry the same recorded pronunciation, \di.vɔʁ.se\. 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 51244, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

divorcée is recorded at frequency rank #27,408, classified as anoun, pronounced \di.vɔʁ.se\. divorcer is at rank #23,836, tagged as averb, pronounced \di.vɔʁ.se\.

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 51244, this pair ranks #156,500 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of divorcée vs divorcer

Shared letters: cdeiorv. Private to "divorcée": é. Private to "divorcer": -.

"divorcée" · 8 letters · shape CVCVCCVV  ·  "divorcer" · 8 letters · shape CVCVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • divorcer ← ddivorcer · diovrcer · divocrer · divorccer · divorcerr · divorcre · divorecr · divorrcer

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "divorcée" for "divorcer" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "divorcée" is a noun and "divorcer" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "divorcée" vs "divorcer" - which ranks higher?
"divorcer" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #23,836 in our French list, against #27,408 for "divorcée". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "divorcée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "divorcer" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #156,500 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "divorcée" and "divorcer" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "divorcée vs divorcent". 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 #156,500 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