effacéevseffacentWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#24,956
“effacée” frequency rank
#30,140
“effacent” frequency rank
55096
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature effacée effacent
Definition Féminin singulier de effacé. Troisième personne du pluriel du présent de l’indicatif de effacer.

Where the eye mixes effacée and effacent

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence.

7 ch
effacée
8 ch
effacent

Visual trap between effacée and effacent

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: effacée is \e.fa.se\ while effacent is \e.fas\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 55096, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

effacée is recorded at frequency rank #24,956, classified as anadj, pronounced \e.fa.se\. effacent is at rank #30,140, tagged as averb, pronounced \e.fas\.

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 55096, this pair ranks #129,708 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of effacée vs effacent

Shared letters: acef. Private to "effacée": é. Private to "effacent": nt.

"effacée" · 7 letters · shape VCCVCVV  ·  "effacent" · 8 letters · shape VCCVCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • effacentefacent · efafcent · effaccent · effacennt · effacentt · effacetn · effacnet · effaecnt

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "effacée" and "effacent" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "effacée" is an adjective and "effacent" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "effacée" vs "effacent" - which ranks higher?
"effacée" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #24,956 in our French list, against #30,140 for "effacent". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Eye-level mix-up between "effacée" and "effacent" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "effacée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "effacent" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #129,708 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "effacée" and "effacent" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "effacent vs effacera". 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 #129,708 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