enceintesvséteintesWhat's the difference?

Which to use

“enceintes” and “éteintes” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#9,993
“enceintes” frequency rank
#28,421
“éteintes” frequency rank
38414
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature enceintes éteintes
Definition Féminin pluriel de enceint. Féminin pluriel de éteint.

Where the eye mixes enceintes and éteintes

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence. enceintes runs 9 letters (VCCVVCCVC) against éteintes's 8 (VCVVCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

9 ch
enceintes
8 ch
éteintes

Look-alike desk: enceintes vs éteintes

A purely visual mix-up. enceintes (\ɑ̃.sɛ̃t\) and éteintes (\e.tɛ̃t\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 38414, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

enceintes is recorded at frequency rank #9,993, classified as anadj, pronounced \ɑ̃.sɛ̃t\. éteintes is at rank #28,421, tagged as anadj, pronounced \e.tɛ̃t\.

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 38414, this pair ranks #255,406 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of enceintes vs éteintes

Shared letters: einst. Private to "enceintes": c. Private to "éteintes": é.

"enceintes" · 9 letters · shape VCCVVCCVC  ·  "éteintes" · 8 letters · shape VCVVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • enceintesecneintes · encceintes · enceinets · enceinntes · enceintess · enceintse · enceinttes · enceitnes

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "enceintes" for "éteintes" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\ɑ̃.sɛ̃t\ versus \e.tɛ̃t\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "enceintes" or "éteintes" show up more?
"enceintes" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #9,993 in our French list, against #28,421 for "éteintes". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "enceintes" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "éteintes" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #255,406 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "enceintes" and "éteintes" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "éteins vs éteintes". 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 #255,406 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