Which to use
“gardée” is an adjective and “gardent” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #16,373
- “gardée” frequency rank
- #9,168
- “gardent” frequency rank
- 25541
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | gardée | gardent |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Féminin singulier de gardé. | Troisième personne du pluriel du présent de l’indicatif de garder. |
Where the eye mixes gardée and gardent
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. gardée runs 6 letters (CVCCVV) against gardent's 7 (CVCCVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Why the eye confuses gardée with gardent
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: gardée is \ɡaʁ.de\ while gardent is \ɡaʁd\. 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 (adjective vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 25541, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
gardée is recorded at frequency rank #16,373, classified as anadj, pronounced \ɡaʁ.de\. gardent is at rank #9,168, tagged as averb, pronounced \ɡaʁd\.
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 25541, this pair ranks #340,293 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of gardée vs gardent
Shared letters: adegr. Private to "gardée": é. Private to "gardent": nt.
"gardée" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVV · "gardent" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
- gardent ← agrdent · gadrent · garddent · gardennt · gardentt · gardetn · gardnet · garednt
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "gardée" for "gardent" ever safe?
In ordinary French text, does "gardée" or "gardent" show up more?
What to do next
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "gardée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "gardent" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #340,293 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "gardée" and "gardent" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "gardée vs garner". 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 #340,293 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.