formvsformeWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#26,370
“form” frequency rank
#371
“forme” frequency rank
26741
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature form forme
Definition Deuxième personne du singulier de l’impératif présent de formen. Aspect extérieur, configuration caractéristique ou particulière d’une chose.

Same sound, different letters: form vs forme

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 4 letters.

4 ch
form
5 ch
forme

Homophone desk: form vs forme

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: form and forme carry the same recorded pronunciation, \fɔʁm\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is averb, the other anoun, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “form” sits inside “forme”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 26741, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

form is recorded at frequency rank #26,370, classified as averb, pronounced \fɔʁm\. forme is at rank #371, tagged as anoun, pronounced \fɔʁm\.

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 26741, this pair ranks #333,123 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of form vs forme

Shared letters: fmor. Private to "form": -. Private to "forme": e.

"form" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "forme" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • formfform · fomr · formm · forrm · ofrm
  • formefforme · fomre · forem · formme · forrme · frome · ofrme

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "form" for "forme" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "form" is a verb and "forme" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "form" vs "forme" - which ranks higher?
"forme" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #371 in our French list, against #26,370 for "form". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "form" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "forme" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #333,123 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "form" and "forme" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "form vs FPR". 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 #333,123 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