firmesvsfixéesWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#15,630
“firmes” frequency rank
#12,572
“fixées” frequency rank
28202
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature firmes fixées
Definition Pluriel de firme. Féminin pluriel de fixé.

Where the eye mixes firmes and fixées

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

6 ch
firmes
6 ch
fixées

Look-alike desk: firmes vs fixées

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: firmes is \fiʁm\ while fixées is \fik.se\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 28202, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

firmes is recorded at frequency rank #15,630, classified as anoun, pronounced \fiʁm\. fixées is at rank #12,572, 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 28202, this pair ranks #324,300 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of firmes vs fixées

Shared letters: efis. Private to "firmes": mr. Private to "fixées": .

"firmes" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "fixées" · 6 letters · shape CVCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • firmesffirmes · fimres · firems · firmess · firmmes · firmse · firrmes · frimes

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "firmes" for "fixées" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "firmes" is a noun and "fixées" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "firmes" or "fixées" show up more?
"fixées" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #12,572 in our French list, against #15,630 for "firmes". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "firmes" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "fixées" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #324,300 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "firmes" and "fixées" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "figées vs firmes". 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 #324,300 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