Which to use
“immobile” is an adjective and “immobilise” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #14,701
- “immobile” frequency rank
- #49,713
- “immobilise” frequency rank
- 64414
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | immobile | immobilise |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Qui ne se meut pas. | Première personne du singulier du présent de l’indicatif de immobiliser. |
Where the eye mixes immobile and immobilise
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 8 letters in sequence. immobile runs 8 letters (VCCVCVCV) against immobilise's 10 (VCCVCVCVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Why the eye confuses immobile with immobilise
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: immobile is \i.mɔ.bil\ while immobilise is \i.mɔ.bi.liz\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 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 64414, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
immobile is recorded at frequency rank #14,701, classified as anadj, pronounced \i.mɔ.bil\. immobilise is at rank #49,713, tagged as averb, pronounced \i.mɔ.bi.liz\.
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 64414, this pair ranks #77,204 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of immobile vs immobilise
Shared letters: beilmo. Private to "immobile": -. Private to "immobilise": s.
"immobile" · 8 letters · shape VCCVCVCV · "immobilise" · 10 letters · shape VCCVCVCVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
- immobile ← immboile · immobbile · immobiel · immobille · immoblie · immoible · imobile · imombile
- immobilise ← immboilise · immobbilise · immobiilse · immobilies · immobilisse · immobillise · immobilsie · immobliise
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "immobile" for "immobilise" ever safe?
In ordinary French text, does "immobile" or "immobilise" show up more?
Useful next steps
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "immobile" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "immobilise" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #77,204 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "immobile" and "immobilise" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "immobilise vs immobilité". 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 #77,204 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.