obligévsobligeraTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#1,780
“obligé” frequency rank
#40,400
“obligera” frequency rank
42180
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature obligé obligera
Definition Qui est d’usage, dont on ne peut guère se dispenser ; obligatoire. Troisième personne du singulier du futur de obliger.

Letter map: obligé vs obligera

Shared letters muted; letters that set obligé and obligera apart highlighted. Shared run: 5. obligé runs 6 letters (VCCVCV) against obligera's 8 (VCCVCVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
obligé
8 ch
obligera

Part-of-speech tell for obligé / obligera

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: obligé is anadjective and obligeraaverb. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 42180, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

obligé is recorded at frequency rank #1,780, classified as anadj. obligera is at rank #40,400, tagged as averb, pronounced \ɔ.bli.ʒə.ʁa\.

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 42180, this pair ranks #227,611 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of obligé vs obligera

Shared letters: bgilo. Private to "obligé": é. Private to "obligera": aer.

"obligé" · 6 letters · shape VCCVCV  ·  "obligera" · 8 letters · shape VCCVCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • obligeraboligera · obbligera · obilgera · oblgiera · obliegra · obligear · obligerra · obliggera

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "obligé" and "obligera" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "obligé" is an adjective and "obligera" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "obligé" vs "obligera" - which ranks higher?
"obligé" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,780 in our French list, against #40,400 for "obligera". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "obligé" and "obligera".

  • Full dictionary entry for "obligé" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "obligera" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #227,611 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "obligé" and "obligera" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "obligea vs obligera". 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 #227,611 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