fendrevsfenêtreWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#31,490
“fendre” frequency rank
#2,475
“fenêtre” frequency rank
33965
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature fendre fenêtre
Definition Diviser, séparer, couper en long ou en large, ou de toute autre manière. Ouverture faite dans certaines parties d’un bâtiment, pour donner du jour et de l’air à l’intérieur.

Where the eye mixes fendre and fenêtre

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. fendre runs 6 letters (CVCCCV) against fenêtre's 7 (CVCVCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
fendre
7 ch
fenêtre

Visual trap between fendre and fenêtre

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: fendre is \fɑ̃dʁ\ while fenêtre is \fə.nɛtʁ\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 33965, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

fendre is recorded at frequency rank #31,490, classified as averb, pronounced \fɑ̃dʁ\. fenêtre is at rank #2,475, tagged as anoun, pronounced \fə.nɛtʁ\.

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 33965, this pair ranks #287,061 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of fendre vs fenêtre

Shared letters: efnr. Private to "fendre": d. Private to "fenêtre": tê.

"fendre" · 6 letters · shape CVCCCV  ·  "fenêtre" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • fendre ← efndre · fednre · fenddre · fender · fendrre · fenndre · fenrde · ffendre

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "fendre" and "fenêtre" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "fendre" is a verb and "fenêtre" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "fendre" or "fenêtre" show up more?
"fenêtre" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,475 in our French list, against #31,490 for "fendre". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "fendre" and "fenêtre" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "fendre" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "fenêtre" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #287,061 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "fendre" and "fenêtre" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "fendre vs fendue". 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 #287,061 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