insenséevsintentéeTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#35,554
“insensée” frequency rank
#44,516
“intentée” frequency rank
80070
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature insensée intentée
Definition Féminin singulier de insensé. Participe passé féminin singulier de intenter.

Where the eye mixes insensée and intentée

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence. insensée and intentée follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (VCCVCCVV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

8 ch
insensée
8 ch
intentée

Look-alike desk: insensée vs intentée

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: insensée is \ɛ̃.sɑ̃.se\ while intentée is \ɛ̃.tɑ̃.te\. 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 80070, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

insensée is recorded at frequency rank #35,554, classified as anadj, pronounced \ɛ̃.sɑ̃.se\. intentée is at rank #44,516, tagged as averb, pronounced \ɛ̃.tɑ̃.te\.

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 80070, this pair ranks #21,803 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of insensée vs intentée

Shared letters: einé. Private to "insensée": s. Private to "intentée": t.

"insensée" · 8 letters · shape VCCVCCVV  ·  "intentée" · 8 letters · shape VCCVCCVV

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "insensée" for "intentée" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "insensée" is an adjective and "intentée" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "insensée" or "intentée"?
"insensée" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #35,554 in our French list, against #44,516 for "intentée". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "insensée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "intentée" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #21,803 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "insensée" and "intentée" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "intentée vs inventes". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #21,803 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