Which to use
“fautive” and “furtive” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #40,269
- “fautive” frequency rank
- #48,544
- “furtive” frequency rank
- 88813
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | fautive | furtive |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Féminin singulier de fautif. | Féminin singulier de furtif. |
Where the eye mixes fautive and furtive
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence. fautive (CVVCVCV) and furtive (CVCCVCV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.
Visual trap between fautive and furtive
A purely visual mix-up. fautive (\fo.tiv\) and furtive (\fyʁ.tiv\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 88813, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
fautive is recorded at frequency rank #40,269, classified as anadj, pronounced \fo.tiv\. furtive is at rank #48,544, tagged as anadj, pronounced \fyʁ.tiv\.
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 88813, this pair ranks #6,501 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of fautive vs furtive
Shared letters: efituv. Private to "fautive": a. Private to "furtive": r.
"fautive" · 7 letters · shape CVVCVCV · "furtive" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "fautive" and "furtive" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "fautive" or "furtive" show up more?
What to do next
Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.
- Full dictionary entry for "fautive" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "furtive" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #6,501 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "fautive" and "furtive" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "furtifs vs furtive". 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 #6,501 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.