interditvsintervintWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#1,920
“interdit” frequency rank
#43,511
“intervint” frequency rank
45431
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature interdit intervint
Definition Défendu par la loi, ou par la morale. Troisième personne du singulier du passé simple de intervenir.

Where the eye mixes interdit and intervint

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 7 letters in sequence.

8 ch
interdit
9 ch
intervint

Why the eye confuses interdit with intervint

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: interdit is \ɛ̃.tɛʁ.di\ while intervint is \ɛ̃.tɛʁ.vɛ̃\. 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 45431, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

interdit is recorded at frequency rank #1,920, classified as anadj, pronounced \ɛ̃.tɛʁ.di\. intervint is at rank #43,511, tagged as averb, pronounced \ɛ̃.tɛʁ.vɛ̃\.

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 45431, this pair ranks #202,754 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of interdit vs intervint

Shared letters: einrt. Private to "interdit": d. Private to "intervint": v.

"interdit" · 8 letters · shape VCCVCCVC  ·  "intervint" · 9 letters · shape VCCVCCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • interditinetrdit · innterdit · intedrit · interddit · interditt · interdti · interidt · interrdit
  • intervintinetrvint · inntervint · interivnt · interrvint · intervinnt · intervintt · intervitn · intervnit

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "interdit" and "intervint" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "interdit" is an adjective and "intervint" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "interdit" or "intervint" show up more?
"interdit" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,920 in our French list, against #43,511 for "intervint". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "interdit" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "intervint" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #202,754 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "interdit" and "intervint" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "interviens vs intervint". 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 #202,754 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