habitéevshabitentWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#18,214
“habitée” frequency rank
#8,718
“habitent” frequency rank
26932
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature habitée habitent
Definition Féminin singulier de habité. Troisième personne du pluriel du présent de l’indicatif de habiter.

Where the eye mixes habitée and habitent

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence. habitée runs 7 letters (CVCVCVV) against habitent's 8 (CVCVCVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

7 ch
habitée
8 ch
habitent

Why the eye confuses habitée with habitent

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: habitée is \a.bi.te\ while habitent is \a.bit\. 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 26932, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

habitée is recorded at frequency rank #18,214, classified as anadj, pronounced \a.bi.te\. habitent is at rank #8,718, tagged as averb, pronounced \a.bit\.

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 26932, this pair ranks #331,965 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of habitée vs habitent

Shared letters: abehit. Private to "habitée": é. Private to "habitent": n.

"habitée" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVV  ·  "habitent" · 8 letters · shape CVCVCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • habitentahbitent · habbitent · habietnt · habitennt · habitentt · habitetn · habitnet · habittent

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "habitée" for "habitent" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "habitée" is an adjective and "habitent" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "habitée" or "habitent"?
"habitent" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #8,718 in our French list, against #18,214 for "habitée". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "habitée" and "habitent" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "habitée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "habitent" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #331,965 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "habitée" and "habitent" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "habitée vs habituées". 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 #331,965 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