internervsinternésWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: interner is a verb, internés is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#42,954
“interner” frequency rank
#38,864
“internés” frequency rank
81818
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature interner internés
Definition Obliger à résider dans une certaine localité, sans permission d’en sortir. Masculin pluriel de interné.

Same sound, different letters: interner vs internés

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 6 letters.

8 ch
interner
8 ch
internés

Homophone desk: interner vs internés

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: interner and internés carry the same recorded pronunciation, \ɛ̃.tɛʁ.ne\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is averb, the other anadjective, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 81818, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

interner is recorded at frequency rank #42,954, classified as averb, pronounced \ɛ̃.tɛʁ.ne\. internés is at rank #38,864, tagged as anadj, pronounced \ɛ̃.tɛʁ.ne\.

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 81818, this pair ranks #17,975 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of interner vs internés

Shared letters: einrt. Private to "interner": -. Private to "internés": .

"interner" · 8 letters · shape VCCVCCVC  ·  "internés" · 8 letters · shape VCCVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • internerinetrner · innterner · intenrer · interenr · internerr · internner · internre · interrner

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "interner" and "internés" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "interner" is a verb and "internés" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "interner" or "internés" show up more?
"internés" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #38,864 in our French list, against #42,954 for "interner". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

"interner" and "internés" share a sound, keep the gloss open, then jump to the headword or a nearby trap.

  • Full dictionary entry for "interner" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "internés" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #17,975 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "interner" and "internés" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "insérées vs internés". 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 #17,975 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