effacéevseffacerTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#24,956
“effacée” frequency rank
#5,974
“effacer” frequency rank
30930
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature effacée effacer
Definition Féminin singulier de effacé. Faire disparaître plus ou moins, en parlant de la forme, des couleurs de quelque chose.

Same sound, different letters: effacée vs effacer

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

7 ch
effacée
7 ch
effacer

Ear matches; page differs - effacée and effacer

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: effacée and effacer carry the same recorded pronunciation, \e.fa.se\. 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 30930, 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\. effacer is at rank #5,974, tagged as averb, pronounced \e.fa.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 30930, this pair ranks #307,080 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of effacée vs effacer

Shared letters: acef. Private to "effacée": é. Private to "effacer": r.

"effacée" · 7 letters · shape VCCVCVV  ·  "effacer" · 7 letters · shape VCCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • effacer ← efacer · efafcer · effaccer · effacerr · effacre · effaecr · effcaer · fefacer

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "effacée" and "effacer" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "effacée" is an adjective and "effacer" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "effacée" vs "effacer" - which ranks higher?
"effacer" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #5,974 in our French list, against #24,956 for "effacée". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Sound matches; spelling doesn't. Use the exits below to lock the right form or check a cousin pair.

  • Full dictionary entry for "effacée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "effacer" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #307,080 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "effacée" and "effacer" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "effacée 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 #307,080 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