invalidevsinvaliditéWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: invalide is a adjective, invalidité is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“invalide” is an adjective and “invalidité” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#22,299
“invalide” frequency rank
#19,568
“invalidité” frequency rank
41867
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature invalide invalidité
Definition Qui est rendu par l’âge ou les blessures incapable de continuer le service militaire. Manque de validité.

Where the eye mixes invalide and invalidité

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

8 ch
invalide
10 ch
invalidité

Visual trap between invalide and invalidité

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: invalide is \ɛ̃.va.lid\ while invalidité is \ɛ̃.va.li.di.te\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 41867, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

invalide is recorded at frequency rank #22,299, classified as anadj, pronounced \ɛ̃.va.lid\. invalidité is at rank #19,568, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ɛ̃.va.li.di.te\.

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 41867, this pair ranks #229,919 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of invalide vs invalidité

Shared letters: adilnv. Private to "invalide": e. Private to "invalidité": .

"invalide" · 8 letters · shape VCCVCVCV  ·  "invalidité" · 10 letters · shape VCCVCVCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • invalideinavlide · innvalide · invailde · invaldie · invalidde · invalied · invallide · invlaide

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "invalide" for "invalidité" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "invalide" is an adjective and "invalidité" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "invalide" or "invalidité" show up more?
"invalidité" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #19,568 in our French list, against #22,299 for "invalide". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "invalide" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "invalidité" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #229,919 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "invalide" and "invalidité" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "invalide vs invalider". 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 #229,919 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