firevsfixésTell them apart

Quick tell: fire is a noun, fixés is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“fire” is a noun and “fixés” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#10,874
“fire” frequency rank
#9,834
“fixés” frequency rank
20708
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature fire fixés
Definition Feu (le phénomène en général). Masculin pluriel de fixé.

Where the eye mixes fire and fixés

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. fire runs 4 letters (CVCV) against fixés's 5 (CVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
fire
5 ch
fixés

Why the eye confuses fire with fixés

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: fire is \ˈfaɪ.ɚ\ while fixés is \fik.se\. 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 (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 20708, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

fire is recorded at frequency rank #10,874, classified as anoun, pronounced \ˈfaɪ.ɚ\. fixés is at rank #9,834, tagged as anadj, pronounced \fik.se\.

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 20708, this pair ranks #366,899 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of fire vs fixés

Shared letters: fi. Private to "fire": er. Private to "fixés": sxé.

"fire" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "fixés" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • fire ← ffire · firre · frie · ifre

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "fire" and "fixés" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "fire" is a noun and "fixés" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "fire" or "fixés" show up more?
"fixés" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #9,834 in our French list, against #10,874 for "fire". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "fire" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "fixés" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #366,899 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "fire" and "fixés" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "filez vs fire". 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 #366,899 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