héritéevshésitesTell them apart

Which to use

“héritée” and “hésites” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#30,209
“héritée” frequency rank
#28,992
“hésites” frequency rank
59201
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature héritée hésites
Definition Participe passé féminin singulier de hériter. Deuxième personne du singulier du présent de l’indicatif de hésiter.

Where the eye mixes héritée and hésites

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. héritée (CVCVCVV) and hésites (CVCVCVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

7 ch
héritée
7 ch
hésites

Look-alike desk: héritée vs hésites

A purely visual mix-up. héritée (\e.ʁi.te\) and hésites (^((h muet))\e.zit\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 59201, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

héritée is recorded at frequency rank #30,209, classified as averb, pronounced \e.ʁi.te\. hésites is at rank #28,992, tagged as averb, pronounced ^((h muet))\e.zit\.

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 59201, this pair ranks #104,499 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of héritée vs hésites

Shared letters: ehité. Private to "héritée": r. Private to "hésites": s.

"héritée" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVV  ·  "hésites" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "héritée" and "hésites" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\e.ʁi.te\ versus ^((h muet))\e.zit\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "héritée" or "hésites" show up more?
"hésites" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #28,992 in our French list, against #30,209 for "héritée". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "héritée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "hésites" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #104,499 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "héritée" and "hésites" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "héritée vs hermite". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #104,499 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