habilitéevshabilitésWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#43,970
“habilitée” frequency rank
#36,425
“habilités” frequency rank
80395
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature habilitée habilités
Definition Participe passé féminin singulier de habiliter. Pluriel de habilité.

Same sound, different letters: habilitée vs habilités

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 8 letters. habilitée (CVCVCVCVV) and habilités (CVCVCVCVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

9 ch
habilitée
9 ch
habilités

Homophone desk: habilitée vs habilités

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: habilitée and habilités carry the same recorded pronunciation, \a.bi.li.te\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is averb, the other anoun, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They differ by a single letter - e in “habilitée” becomes s in “habilités”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 80395, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

habilitée is recorded at frequency rank #43,970, classified as averb, pronounced \a.bi.li.te\. habilités is at rank #36,425, tagged as anoun, pronounced \a.bi.li.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 80395, this pair ranks #21,046 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of habilitée vs habilités

Shared letters: abhilté. Private to "habilitée": e. Private to "habilités": s.

"habilitée" · 9 letters · shape CVCVCVCVV  ·  "habilités" · 9 letters · shape CVCVCVCVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "habilitée" and "habilités" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "habilitée" is a verb and "habilités" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "habilitée" or "habilités" show up more?
"habilités" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #36,425 in our French list, against #43,970 for "habilitée". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Sound matches; spelling doesn't. Use the exits below to lock the right form or check a cousin pair.

  • Full dictionary entry for "habilitée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "habilités" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #21,046 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "habilitée" and "habilités" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "habilités vs habilles". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #21,046 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