humiliervshumilitéTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#14,281
“humilier” frequency rank
#10,718
“humilité” frequency rank
24999
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature humilier humilité
Definition Abaisser en rendant plein d’humilité. Vertu qui nous donne le sentiment de notre faiblesse, qui réprime en nous les mouvements de l’orgueil.

Where the eye mixes humilier and humilité

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence. humilier (CVCVCVVC) and humilité (CVCVCVCV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

8 ch
humilier
8 ch
humilité

Visual trap between humilier and humilité

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: humilier is \y.mi.lje\ while humilité is \y.mi.li.te\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 24999, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

humilier is recorded at frequency rank #14,281, classified as averb, pronounced \y.mi.lje\. humilité is at rank #10,718, tagged as anoun, pronounced \y.mi.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 24999, this pair ranks #343,364 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of humilier vs humilité

Shared letters: hilmu. Private to "humilier": er. Private to "humilité": té.

"humilier" · 8 letters · shape CVCVCVVC  ·  "humilité" · 8 letters · shape CVCVCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • humilier ← hhumilier · hmuilier · huimlier · humiiler · humileir · humilierr · humilire · humillier

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "humilier" and "humilité" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "humilier" is a verb and "humilité" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "humilier" or "humilité"?
"humilité" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #10,718 in our French list, against #14,281 for "humilier". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "humilier" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "humilité" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #343,364 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "humilier" and "humilité" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "humilie vs humilier". 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 #343,364 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