habiletésvshabitéesTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#32,428
“habiletés” frequency rank
#28,583
“habitées” frequency rank
61011
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature habiletés habitées
Definition Pluriel de habileté. Féminin pluriel de habité.

Where the eye mixes habiletés and habitées

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 7 letters in sequence. habiletés runs 9 letters (CVCVCVCVC) against habitées's 8 (CVCVCVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

9 ch
habiletés
8 ch
habitées

Look-alike desk: habiletés vs habitées

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: habiletés is \a.bil.te\ while habitées is \a.bi.te\. 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 (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 61011, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

habiletés is recorded at frequency rank #32,428, classified as anoun, pronounced \a.bil.te\. habitées is at rank #28,583, tagged as anadj, pronounced \a.bi.te\.

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 61011, this pair ranks #94,542 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of habiletés vs habitées

Shared letters: abehisté. Private to "habiletés": l. Private to "habitées": -.

"habiletés" · 9 letters · shape CVCVCVCVC  ·  "habitées" · 8 letters · shape CVCVCVVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "habiletés" for "habitées" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "habiletés" is a noun and "habitées" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "habiletés" vs "habitées" - which ranks higher?
"habitées" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #28,583 in our French list, against #32,428 for "habiletés". 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 "habiletés" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "habitées" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #94,542 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "habiletés" and "habitées" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "habiletés vs habilitée". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #94,542 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