félicitévsféliciterTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#11,414
“félicité” frequency rank
#9,844
“féliciter” frequency rank
21258
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature félicité féliciter
Definition Béatitude ; grand bonheur. Complimenter quelqu’un sur un succès, sur un événement agréable.

Same sound, different letters: félicité vs féliciter

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 7 letters. félicité runs 8 letters (CVCVCVCV) against féliciter's 9 (CVCVCVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

8 ch
félicité
9 ch
féliciter

Homophone desk: félicité vs féliciter

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: félicité and féliciter carry the same recorded pronunciation, \fe.li.si.te\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is anoun, 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 21258, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

félicité is recorded at frequency rank #11,414, classified as anoun, pronounced \fe.li.si.te\. féliciter is at rank #9,844, tagged as averb, pronounced \fe.li.si.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 21258, this pair ranks #364,100 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of félicité vs féliciter

Shared letters: cfilté. Private to "félicité": -. Private to "féliciter": er.

"félicité" · 8 letters · shape CVCVCVCV  ·  "féliciter" · 9 letters · shape CVCVCVCVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "félicité" and "féliciter" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "félicité" is a noun and "féliciter" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "félicité" vs "féliciter" - which ranks higher?
"féliciter" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #9,844 in our French list, against #11,414 for "félicité". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "félicité" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "féliciter" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #364,100 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "félicité" and "féliciter" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "felice vs félicité". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #364,100 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