inclinervsinclinésWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: incliner is a verb, inclinés is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#18,778
“incliner” frequency rank
#29,816
“inclinés” frequency rank
48594
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature incliner inclinés
Definition Mettre dans une situation oblique, par rapport au plan de l’horizon. Masculin pluriel de incliné.

Same sound, different letters: incliner vs inclinés

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 6 letters. incliner and inclinés follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (VCCCVCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

8 ch
incliner
8 ch
inclinés

Ear matches; page differs - incliner and inclinés

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: incliner and inclinés carry the same recorded pronunciation, \ɛ̃.kli.ne\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is averb, the other anadjective, 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 48594, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

incliner is recorded at frequency rank #18,778, classified as averb, pronounced \ɛ̃.kli.ne\. inclinés is at rank #29,816, tagged as anadj, pronounced \ɛ̃.kli.ne\.

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 48594, this pair ranks #177,647 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of incliner vs inclinés

Shared letters: ciln. Private to "incliner": er. Private to "inclinés": sé.

"incliner" · 8 letters · shape VCCCVCVC  ·  "inclinés" · 8 letters · shape VCCCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • incliner ← icnliner · inccliner · incilner · inclienr · inclinerr · inclinner · inclinre · inclliner

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "incliner" and "inclinés" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "incliner" is a verb and "inclinés" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "incliner" or "inclinés" show up more?
"incliner" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #18,778 in our French list, against #29,816 for "inclinés". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "incliner" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "inclinés" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #177,647 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "incliner" and "inclinés" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "incités vs inclinés". 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 #177,647 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