infirmervsinformésWhat's the difference?

Which to use

“infirmer” and “informés” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#30,217
“infirmer” frequency rank
#10,722
“informés” frequency rank
40939
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature infirmer informés
Definition Affaiblir, diminuer, ôter la force, la valeur d’une chose. Participe passé masculin pluriel de informer.

Where the eye mixes infirmer and informés

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

8 ch
infirmer
8 ch
informés

Visual trap between infirmer and informés

A purely visual mix-up. infirmer (\ɛ̃.fiʁ.me\) and informés (\ɛ̃.fɔʁ.me\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 40939, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

infirmer is recorded at frequency rank #30,217, classified as averb, pronounced \ɛ̃.fiʁ.me\. informés is at rank #10,722, 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 40939, this pair ranks #236,818 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of infirmer vs informés

Shared letters: fimnr. Private to "infirmer": e. Private to "informés": osé.

"infirmer" · 8 letters · shape VCCVCCVC  ·  "informés" · 8 letters · shape VCCVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • infirmer ← ifnirmer · inffirmer · infimrer · infiremr · infirmerr · infirmmer · infirmre · infirrmer

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "infirmer" and "informés" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\ɛ̃.fiʁ.me\ versus \ɛ̃.fɔʁ.me\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "infirmer" vs "informés" - which ranks higher?
"informés" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #10,722 in our French list, against #30,217 for "infirmer". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "infirmer" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "informés" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #236,818 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "infirmer" and "informés" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "infimes vs infirmer". 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 #236,818 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