interessevsintérêtsWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#25,015
“interesse” frequency rank
#1,481
“intérêts” frequency rank
26496
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature interesse intérêts
Definition Intérêt. Pluriel de intérêt.

Where the eye mixes interesse and intérêts

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. interesse runs 9 letters (VCCVCVCCV) against intérêts's 8 (VCCVCVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

9 ch
interesse
8 ch
intérêts

Visual trap between interesse and intérêts

A purely visual mix-up. interesse (\in.te.ˈrɛs.se\) and intérêts (\ɛ̃.te.ʁɛ\) 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 26496, 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\. intérêts is at rank #1,481, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ɛ̃.te.ʁɛ\.

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 26496, this pair ranks #334,640 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of interesse vs intérêts

Shared letters: inrst. Private to "interesse": e. Private to "intérêts": éê.

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

Known mistypes of this pair

  • interesse ← inetresse · innteresse · inteersse · interese · intereses · interresse · intersese · intreesse

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "interesse" and "intérêts" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\in.te.ˈrɛs.se\ versus \ɛ̃.te.ʁɛ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "interesse" or "intérêts"?
"intérêts" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,481 in our French list, against #25,015 for "interesse". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "interesse" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "intérêts" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #334,640 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "interesse" and "intérêts" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "intéressa vs interesse". 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 #334,640 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