gâtéevsgéréeWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#31,984
“gâtée” frequency rank
#13,607
“gérée” frequency rank
45591
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature gâtée gérée
Definition Féminin singulier de gâté. Participe passé féminin singulier de gérer.

Where the eye mixes gâtée and gérée

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. gâtée and gérée follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

5 ch
gâtée
5 ch
gérée

Look-alike desk: gâtée vs gérée

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: gâtée is \ɡɑ.te\ while gérée is \ʒe.ʁe\. 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 (adjective vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 45591, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

gâtée is recorded at frequency rank #31,984, classified as anadj, pronounced \ɡɑ.te\. gérée is at rank #13,607, tagged as averb, pronounced \ʒe.ʁe\.

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 45591, this pair ranks #201,537 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of gâtée vs gérée

Shared letters: egé. Private to "gâtée": tâ. Private to "gérée": r.

"gâtée" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV  ·  "gérée" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "gâtée" for "gérée" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "gâtée" is an adjective and "gérée" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "gâtée" vs "gérée" - which ranks higher?
"gérée" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #13,607 in our French list, against #31,984 for "gâtée". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

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 "gâtée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "gérée" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #201,537 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "gâtée" and "gérée" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "gabe vs gâtée". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #201,537 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