indiquevsinsinueConfusable pair

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

Which to use

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

#1,772
“indique” frequency rank
#29,400
“insinue” frequency rank
31172
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature indique insinue
Definition Qualifie les composés acides de l’indium et de l’oxygène. Première personne du singulier du présent de l’indicatif de insinuer.

Where the eye mixes indique and insinue

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. indique and insinue follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (VCCVCVV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

7 ch
indique
7 ch
insinue

Look-alike desk: indique vs insinue

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: indique is \ɛ̃.dik\ while insinue is \ɛ̃.si.ny\. 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 (adjective vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 31172, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

indique is recorded at frequency rank #1,772, classified as anadj, pronounced \ɛ̃.dik\. insinue is at rank #29,400, tagged as averb, pronounced \ɛ̃.si.ny\.

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 31172, this pair ranks #305,525 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of indique vs insinue

Shared letters: einu. Private to "indique": dq. Private to "insinue": s.

"indique" · 7 letters · shape VCCVCVV  ·  "insinue" · 7 letters · shape VCCVCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • indique ← idnique · inddique · indiqeu · indiqque · indiuqe · indqiue · inidque · inndique
  • insinue ← inisnue · innsinue · insineu · insinnue · insiune · insniue · inssinue · isninue

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "indique" and "insinue" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "indique" is an adjective and "insinue" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "indique" vs "insinue" - which ranks higher?
"indique" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,772 in our French list, against #29,400 for "insinue". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "indique" and "insinue" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "indique" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "insinue" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #305,525 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "indique" and "insinue" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "inique vs insinue". 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 #305,525 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