enflévsenflerWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#42,318
“enflé” frequency rank
#38,784
“enfler” frequency rank
81102
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature enflé enfler
Definition Qui est soumis à une enflure. Augmenter un corps de volume ; gonfler.

Same sound, different letters: enflé vs enfler

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 4 letters.

5 ch
enflé
6 ch
enfler

Ear matches; page differs - enflé and enfler

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: enflé and enfler carry the same recorded pronunciation, \ɑ̃.fle\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is anadjective, the other averb, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 81102, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

enflé is recorded at frequency rank #42,318, classified as anadj, pronounced \ɑ̃.fle\. enfler is at rank #38,784, tagged as averb, pronounced \ɑ̃.fle\.

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 81102, this pair ranks #19,478 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of enflé vs enfler

Shared letters: efln. Private to "enflé": é. Private to "enfler": r.

"enflé" · 5 letters · shape VCCCV  ·  "enfler" · 6 letters · shape VCCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • enflerefnler · enfelr · enffler · enflerr · enfller · enflre · enlfer · ennfler

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "enflé" and "enfler" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "enflé" is an adjective and "enfler" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "enflé" or "enfler" show up more?
"enfler" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #38,784 in our French list, against #42,318 for "enflé". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

"enflé" and "enfler" share a sound, keep the gloss open, then jump to the headword or a nearby trap.

  • Full dictionary entry for "enflé" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "enfler" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #19,478 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "enflé" and "enfler" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ele vs enflé". 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 #19,478 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