Which to use
“infirmerie” and “infirmière” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #14,705
- “infirmerie” frequency rank
- #6,307
- “infirmière” frequency rank
- 21012
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | infirmerie | infirmière |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Lieu destiné, en général, à recevoir des malades peu gravement atteints dans les communautés et maisons religieuses, dans les casernes, dans les collèges, dans tout établissement d’instruction comportant un internat. | Celle qui soigne et sert les malades dans une infirmerie, dans un hôpital, dans une ambulance. |
Where the eye mixes infirmerie and infirmière
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 8 letters in sequence. infirmerie (VCCVCCVCVV) and infirmière (VCCVCCVVCV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.
Look-alike desk: infirmerie vs infirmière
A purely visual mix-up. infirmerie (\ɛ̃.fiʁ.mə.ʁi\) and infirmière (\ɛ̃.fiʁ.mjɛʁ\) 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 21012, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
infirmerie is recorded at frequency rank #14,705, classified as anoun, pronounced \ɛ̃.fiʁ.mə.ʁi\. infirmière is at rank #6,307, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ɛ̃.fiʁ.mjɛʁ\.
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 21012, this pair ranks #365,315 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of infirmerie vs infirmière
Shared letters: efimnr. Private to "infirmerie": -. Private to "infirmière": è.
"infirmerie" · 10 letters · shape VCCVCCVCVV · "infirmière" · 10 letters · shape VCCVCCVVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
- infirmerie ← ifnirmerie · inffirmerie · infimrerie · infiremrie · infirmeire · infirmerei · infirmerrie · infirmmerie
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "infirmerie" for "infirmière" ever safe?
In ordinary French text, does "infirmerie" or "infirmière" show up more?
After this comparison
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "infirmerie" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "infirmière" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #365,315 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "infirmerie" and "infirmière" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "infirmière 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 #365,315 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.