infirmevsinforméeWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#26,053
“infirme” frequency rank
#16,914
“informée” frequency rank
42967
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature infirme informée
Definition Qui est affecté d’une infirmité ou d’infirmités. Participe passé féminin singulier de informer.

Where the eye mixes infirme and informée

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence. infirme runs 7 letters (VCCVCCV) against informée's 8 (VCCVCCVV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

7 ch
infirme
8 ch
informée

Visual trap between infirme and informée

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: infirme is \ɛ̃.fiʁm\ while informée is \ɛ̃.fɔʁ.me\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 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 42967, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

infirme is recorded at frequency rank #26,053, classified as anadj, pronounced \ɛ̃.fiʁm\. informée is at rank #16,914, tagged as averb, pronounced \ɛ̃.fɔʁ.me\.

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 42967, this pair ranks #221,610 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of infirme vs informée

Shared letters: efimnr. Private to "infirme": -. Private to "informée": oé.

"infirme" · 7 letters · shape VCCVCCV  ·  "informée" · 8 letters · shape VCCVCCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • infirme ← ifnirme · inffirme · infimre · infirem · infirmme · infirrme · infrime · inifrme

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "infirme" for "informée" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "infirme" is an adjective and "informée" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "infirme" vs "informée" - which ranks higher?
"informée" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #16,914 in our French list, against #26,053 for "infirme". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "infirme" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "informée" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #221,610 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "infirme" and "informée" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "infirme vs infirmité". 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 #221,610 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