incendiéesvsincendierTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#43,497
“incendiées” frequency rank
#33,734
“incendier” frequency rank
77231
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature incendiées incendier
Definition Féminin pluriel de incendié. Détruire par le feu (ou mettre le feu à) un édifice, une maison, une forêt, etc.

Same sound, different letters: incendiées vs incendier

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 8 letters. incendiées runs 10 letters (VCCVCCVVVC) against incendier's 9 (VCCVCCVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

10 ch
incendiées
9 ch
incendier

Same sound, different spelling - incendiées / incendier

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: incendiées and incendier carry the same recorded pronunciation, \ɛ̃.sɑ̃.dje\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is anadjective, the other averb, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 77231, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

incendiées is recorded at frequency rank #43,497, classified as anadj, pronounced \ɛ̃.sɑ̃.dje\. incendier is at rank #33,734, tagged as averb, pronounced \ɛ̃.sɑ̃.dje\.

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 77231, this pair ranks #28,991 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of incendiées vs incendier

Shared letters: cdein. Private to "incendiées": sé. Private to "incendier": r.

"incendiées" · 10 letters · shape VCCVCCVVVC  ·  "incendier" · 9 letters · shape VCCVCCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • incendier ← icnendier · inccendier · incednier · incenddier · incendeir · incendierr · incendire · incenider

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "incendiées" for "incendier" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "incendiées" is an adjective and "incendier" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "incendiées" or "incendier" show up more?
"incendier" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #33,734 in our French list, against #43,497 for "incendiées". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Sound matches; spelling doesn't. Use the exits below to lock the right form or check a cousin pair.

  • Full dictionary entry for "incendiées" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "incendier" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #28,991 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "incendiées" and "incendier" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "incendiée vs incendiées". 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 #28,991 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