Which to use
“engendre” and “engendrer” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #11,761
- “engendre” frequency rank
- #15,368
- “engendrer” frequency rank
- 27129
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | engendre | engendrer |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Première personne du singulier du présent de l’indicatif de engendrer. | Produire son semblable par voie de génération, en parlant de l’homme et des animaux. |
Where the eye mixes engendre and engendrer
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 8 letters in sequence. engendre runs 8 letters (VCCVCCCV) against engendrer's 9 (VCCVCCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Visual trap between engendre and engendrer
A purely visual mix-up. engendre (\ɑ̃.ʒɑ̃dʁ\) and engendrer (\ɑ̃.ʒɑ̃.dʁe\) 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 extra letter(s) - “engendre” sits inside “engendrer”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 27129, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
engendre is recorded at frequency rank #11,761, classified as averb, pronounced \ɑ̃.ʒɑ̃dʁ\. engendrer is at rank #15,368, tagged as averb, pronounced \ɑ̃.ʒɑ̃.dʁe\.
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 27129, this pair ranks #330,918 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of engendre vs engendrer
Shared letters: degnr. Private to "engendre": -. Private to "engendrer": -.
"engendre" · 8 letters · shape VCCVCCCV · "engendrer" · 9 letters · shape VCCVCCCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "engendre" for "engendrer" ever safe?
In ordinary French text, does "engendre" or "engendrer" show up more?
Useful next steps
Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.
- Full dictionary entry for "engendre" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "engendrer" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #330,918 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "engendre" and "engendrer" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "engendrer vs entendrez". 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 #330,918 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.