installevsinstalléeWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#5,255
“installe” frequency rank
#6,207
“installée” frequency rank
11462
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature installe installée
Definition Première personne du singulier du présent de l’indicatif de installer. Participe passé féminin singulier de installer.

Where the eye mixes installe and installée

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 8 letters in sequence. installe runs 8 letters (VCCCVCCV) against installée's 9 (VCCCVCCVV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

8 ch
installe
9 ch
installée

Why the eye confuses installe with installée

A purely visual mix-up. installe (\ɛ̃s.tal\) and installée (\ɛ̃s.ta.le\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 11462, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

installe is recorded at frequency rank #5,255, classified as averb, pronounced \ɛ̃s.tal\. installée is at rank #6,207, tagged as averb, pronounced \ɛ̃s.ta.le\.

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 11462, this pair ranks #409,069 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of installe vs installée

Shared letters: aeilnst. Private to "installe": -. Private to "installée": é.

"installe" · 8 letters · shape VCCCVCCV  ·  "installée" · 9 letters · shape VCCCVCCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • installe ← innstalle · insatlle · insstalle · instale · instalel · instlale · insttalle · intsalle

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "installe" and "installée" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\ɛ̃s.tal\ versus \ɛ̃s.ta.le\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "installe" or "installée" show up more?
"installe" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #5,255 in our French list, against #6,207 for "installée". 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 "installe" and "installée" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "installe" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "installée" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #409,069 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "installe" and "installée" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "installée vs installes". 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 #409,069 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