Which to use
“ee” is an intj and “etre” is a preposition - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #24,955
- “ee” frequency rank
- #1,412
- “etre” frequency rank
- 26367
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | ee | etre |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Exprime la surprise. | Entre. |
Letter map: ee vs etre
Shared letters muted; letters that set ee and etre apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.
Part-of-speech tell for ee / etre
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: ee is anintj and etreapreposition. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 26367, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
ee is recorded at frequency rank #24,955, classified as anintj. etre is at rank #1,412, tagged as aprep, pronounced \e.ˈtreː\.
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 26367, this pair ranks #335,445 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of ee vs etre
Shared letters: e. Private to "ee": -. Private to "etre": rt.
"ee" · 2 letters · shape VV · "etre" · 4 letters · shape VCCV
Known mistypes of this pair
- etre ← erte · eter · ettre
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "ee" for "etre" ever safe?
Which is more common, "ee" or "etre"?
After this comparison
You've compared "ee" and "etre". Here's where to go from here.
- Full dictionary entry for "ee" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "etre" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #335,445 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "ee" and "etre" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ee vs EPO". 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 #335,445 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.