évitéevséviterTell them apart

Quick tell: évitée is a noun, éviter is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“évitée” is a noun and “éviter” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#31,316
“évitée” frequency rank
#862
“éviter” frequency rank
32178
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature évitée éviter
Definition Action d’un navire qui se meut pour éviter. Échapper, se soustraire à quelque chose de nuisible, de désagréable.

Same sound, different letters: évitée vs éviter

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 5 letters. évitée (VCVCVV) and éviter (VCVCVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

6 ch
évitée
6 ch
éviter

Homophone desk: évitée vs éviter

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: évitée and éviter carry the same recorded pronunciation, \e.vi.te\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is anoun, 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 32178, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

évitée is recorded at frequency rank #31,316, classified as anoun, pronounced \e.vi.te\. éviter is at rank #862, tagged as averb, pronounced \e.vi.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 32178, this pair ranks #298,987 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of évitée vs éviter

Shared letters: eitvé. Private to "évitée": -. Private to "éviter": r.

"évitée" · 6 letters · shape VCVCVV  ·  "éviter" · 6 letters · shape VCVCVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "évitée" for "éviter" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "évitée" is a noun and "éviter" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "évitée" or "éviter" show up more?
"éviter" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #862 in our French list, against #31,316 for "évitée". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

You've separated the homophone pair "évitée" / "éviter". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.

  • Full dictionary entry for "évitée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "éviter" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #298,987 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "évitée" and "éviter" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "évitée vs exilée". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #298,987 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