heurtéevsheurterWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#42,921
“heurtée” frequency rank
#18,768
“heurter” frequency rank
61689
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature heurtée heurter
Definition Féminin singulier de heurté. Entrer brusquement en contact.

Same sound, different letters: heurtée vs heurter

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 6 letters. heurtée (CVVCCVV) and heurter (CVVCCVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

7 ch
heurtée
7 ch
heurter

Same sound, different spelling - heurtée / heurter

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: heurtée and heurter carry the same recorded pronunciation, ^((h aspiré))\œʁ.te\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is anadjective, the other averb, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 61689, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

heurtée is recorded at frequency rank #42,921, classified as anadj, pronounced ^((h aspiré))\œʁ.te\. heurter is at rank #18,768, tagged as averb, pronounced ^((h aspiré))\œʁ.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 61689, this pair ranks #90,974 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of heurtée vs heurter

Shared letters: ehrtu. Private to "heurtée": é. Private to "heurter": -.

"heurtée" · 7 letters · shape CVVCCVV  ·  "heurter" · 7 letters · shape CVVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • heurter ← ehurter · heruter · heuretr · heurrter · heurterr · heurtre · heurtter · heutrer

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "heurtée" and "heurter" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "heurtée" is an adjective and "heurter" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "heurtée" or "heurter"?
"heurter" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #18,768 in our French list, against #42,921 for "heurtée". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

You've separated the homophone pair "heurtée" / "heurter". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.

  • Full dictionary entry for "heurtée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "heurter" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #90,974 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "heurtée" and "heurter" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "heurt vs heurtée". 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 #90,974 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