Which to use
“embête” is a verb and “entêté” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #17,944
- “embête” frequency rank
- #49,635
- “entêté” frequency rank
- 67579
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | embête | entêté |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Première personne du singulier du présent de l’indicatif de embêter. | Qui est trop attaché à ses opinions, à ses désirs ; à qui l’on ne peut faire entendre raison. |
Where the eye mixes embête and entêté
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. embête and entêté follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (VCCVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Look-alike desk: embête vs entêté
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: embête is \ɑ̃.bɛt\ while entêté is \ɑ̃.te.te\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 67579, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
embête is recorded at frequency rank #17,944, classified as averb, pronounced \ɑ̃.bɛt\. entêté is at rank #49,635, tagged as anadj, pronounced \ɑ̃.te.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 67579, this pair ranks #62,804 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of embête vs entêté
Shared letters: etê. Private to "embête": bm. Private to "entêté": né.
"embête" · 6 letters · shape VCCVCV · "entêté" · 6 letters · shape VCCVCV
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "embête" and "entêté" be used interchangeably?
Which is more common, "embête" or "entêté"?
What to do next
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "embête" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "entêté" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #62,804 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "embête" and "entêté" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "enter vs entêté". Nearby pair
Confusion rank #62,804 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.