frustréevsfrustrerWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: frustrée is a adjective, frustrer is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“frustrée” is an adjective and “frustrer” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#31,040
“frustrée” frequency rank
#45,061
“frustrer” frequency rank
76101
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature frustrée frustrer
Definition Féminin singulier de frustré. Priver quelqu’un de ce qui lui est dû, de ce qui doit lui revenir, ou à quoi il s’attend.

Same sound, different letters: frustrée vs frustrer

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 7 letters. frustrée (CCVCCCVV) and frustrer (CCVCCCVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

8 ch
frustrée
8 ch
frustrer

Same sound, different spelling - frustrée / frustrer

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: frustrée and frustrer carry the same recorded pronunciation, \fʁys.tʁe\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is anadjective, the other averb, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 76101, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

frustrée is recorded at frequency rank #31,040, classified as anadj, pronounced \fʁys.tʁe\. frustrer is at rank #45,061, tagged as averb, pronounced \fʁys.tʁe\.

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 76101, this pair ranks #32,098 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of frustrée vs frustrer

Shared letters: efrstu. Private to "frustrée": é. Private to "frustrer": -.

"frustrée" · 8 letters · shape CCVCCCVV  ·  "frustrer" · 8 letters · shape CCVCCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • frustrer ← ffrustrer · frrustrer · frsutrer · frusrter · frusstrer · frusterr · frustrerr · frustrrer

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "frustrée" and "frustrer" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "frustrée" is an adjective and "frustrer" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "frustrée" vs "frustrer" - which ranks higher?
"frustrée" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #31,040 in our French list, against #45,061 for "frustrer". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "frustrée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "frustrer" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #32,098 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "frustrée" and "frustrer" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "frustre vs frustrer". 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 #32,098 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