exacerbéevsexacerberConfusable pair

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

Which to use

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

#41,282
“exacerbée” frequency rank
#46,155
“exacerber” frequency rank
87437
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature exacerbée exacerber
Definition Féminin singulier de exacerbé. Rendre plus aigu, plus intense (une sensation, une souffrance ou, par extension, un sentiment, un problème, un débat, etc.).

Same sound, different letters: exacerbée vs exacerber

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 8 letters. exacerbée (VCVCVCCVV) and exacerber (VCVCVCCVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

9 ch
exacerbée
9 ch
exacerber

Same sound, different spelling - exacerbée / exacerber

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: exacerbée and exacerber carry the same recorded pronunciation, \ɛɡ.za.sɛʁ.be\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is anadjective, 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 87437, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

exacerbée is recorded at frequency rank #41,282, classified as anadj, pronounced \ɛɡ.za.sɛʁ.be\. exacerber is at rank #46,155, tagged as averb, pronounced \ɛɡ.za.sɛʁ.be\.

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 87437, this pair ranks #8,294 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of exacerbée vs exacerber

Shared letters: abcerx. Private to "exacerbée": é. Private to "exacerber": -.

"exacerbée" · 9 letters · shape VCVCVCCVV  ·  "exacerber" · 9 letters · shape VCVCVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • exacerber ← eaxcerber · exaccerber · exacebrer · exacerbber · exacerberr · exacerbre · exacerebr · exacerrber

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "exacerbée" and "exacerber" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "exacerbée" is an adjective and "exacerber" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "exacerbée" vs "exacerber" - which ranks higher?
"exacerbée" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #41,282 in our French list, against #46,155 for "exacerber". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Sound matches; spelling doesn't. Use the exits below to lock the right form or check a cousin pair.

  • Full dictionary entry for "exacerbée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "exacerber" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #8,294 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "exacerbée" and "exacerber" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "exacerber vs exagérer". 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 #8,294 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