Which to use
“important” and “importante” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #478
- “important” frequency rank
- #1,029
- “importante” frequency rank
- 1507
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | important | importante |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Qui importe ; qui est majeur, conséquent, considérable ou d’un grand intérêt. | Féminin singulier d'important. |
Where the eye mixes important and importante
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 9 letters in sequence.
Look-alike desk: important vs importante
A purely visual mix-up. important (\ɛ̃.pɔʁ.tɑ̃\) and importante (\ɛ̃.pɔʁ.tɑ̃t\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “important” sits inside “importante”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 1507, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
important is recorded at frequency rank #478, classified as anadj, pronounced \ɛ̃.pɔʁ.tɑ̃\. importante is at rank #1,029, tagged as anadj, pronounced \ɛ̃.pɔʁ.tɑ̃t\.
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 1507, this pair ranks #437,935 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of important vs importante
Shared letters: aimnoprt. Private to "important": -. Private to "importante": e.
"important" · 9 letters · shape VCCVCCVCC · "importante" · 10 letters · shape VCCVCCVCCV
Known mistypes of this pair
- important ← immportant · imoprtant · imporatnt · imporrtant · importannt · importantt · importatn · importnat
- importante ← immportante · imoprtante · imporatnte · imporrtante · importanet · importannte · importantte · importatne
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "important" for "importante" ever safe?
Which is more common, "important" or "importante"?
After this comparison
Eye-level mix-up between "important" and "importante" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "important" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "importante" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #437,935 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "important" and "importante" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "importait vs importante". 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 #437,935 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.