interessevsinterestTell them apart

Which to use

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

#25,015
“interesse” frequency rank
#36,908
“interest” frequency rank
61923
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature interesse interest
Definition Intérêt. Intérêt.

Where the eye mixes interesse and interest

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 7 letters in sequence. interesse runs 9 letters (VCCVCVCCV) against interest's 8 (VCCVCVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

9 ch
interesse
8 ch
interest

Visual trap between interesse and interest

A purely visual mix-up. interesse (\in.te.ˈrɛs.se\) and interest (\ˈɪn.tɹɪst\) 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 61923, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

interesse is recorded at frequency rank #25,015, classified as anoun, pronounced \in.te.ˈrɛs.se\. interest is at rank #36,908, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ˈɪn.tɹɪst\.

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 61923, this pair ranks #89,737 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of interesse vs interest

Shared letters: einrst. Private to "interesse": -. Private to "interest": -.

"interesse" · 9 letters · shape VCCVCVCCV  ·  "interest" · 8 letters · shape VCCVCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • interesse ← inetresse · innteresse · inteersse · interese · intereses · interresse · intersese · intreesse
  • interest ← inetrest · innterest · inteerst · interesst · interestt · interrest · interset · intreest

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "interesse" and "interest" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\in.te.ˈrɛs.se\ versus \ˈɪn.tɹɪst\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "interesse" or "interest"?
"interesse" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #25,015 in our French list, against #36,908 for "interest". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "interesse" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "interest" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #89,737 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "interesse" and "interest" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "intéressa vs interest". 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 #89,737 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