éclatéevséclaterWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#31,304
“éclatée” frequency rank
#7,772
“éclater” frequency rank
39076
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature éclatée éclater
Definition Féminin singulier de éclaté. Exploser; se rompre, se briser en projetant des fragments.

Same sound, different letters: éclatée vs éclater

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 6 letters. éclatée (VCCVCVV) and éclater (VCCVCVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

7 ch
éclatée
7 ch
éclater

Ear matches; page differs - éclatée and éclater

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: éclatée and éclater carry the same recorded pronunciation, \e.kla.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 39076, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

éclatée is recorded at frequency rank #31,304, classified as anadj, pronounced \e.kla.te\. éclater is at rank #7,772, tagged as averb, pronounced \e.kla.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 39076, this pair ranks #250,686 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of éclatée vs éclater

Shared letters: acelté. Private to "éclatée": -. Private to "éclater": r.

"éclatée" · 7 letters · shape VCCVCVV  ·  "éclater" · 7 letters · shape VCCVCVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "éclatée" and "éclater" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "éclatée" is an adjective and "éclater" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "éclatée" or "éclater" show up more?
"éclater" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #7,772 in our French list, against #31,304 for "éclatée". 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 "éclatée" / "éclater". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.

  • Full dictionary entry for "éclatée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "éclater" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #250,686 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "éclatée" and "éclater" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "éclata vs éclatée". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #250,686 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