obligévsobligezTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#1,780
“obligé” frequency rank
#38,948
“obligez” frequency rank
40728
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature obligé obligez
Definition Qui est d’usage, dont on ne peut guère se dispenser ; obligatoire. Deuxième personne du pluriel du présent de l’indicatif de obliger.

Letter map: obligé vs obligez

Shared letters muted; letters that set obligé and obligez apart highlighted. Shared run: 5. obligé runs 6 letters (VCCVCV) against obligez's 7 (VCCVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
obligé
7 ch
obligez

Role in the sentence - obligé and obligez

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: obligé is anadjective and obligezaverb. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 40728, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

obligé is recorded at frequency rank #1,780, classified as anadj. obligez is at rank #38,948, tagged as averb, pronounced \ɔ.bli.ʒe\.

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 40728, this pair ranks #238,343 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of obligé vs obligez

Shared letters: bgilo. Private to "obligé": é. Private to "obligez": ez.

"obligé" · 6 letters · shape VCCVCV  ·  "obligez" · 7 letters · shape VCCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • obligezboligez · obbligez · obilgez · oblgiez · obliegz · obligezz · obliggez · obligze

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "obligé" and "obligez" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "obligé" is an adjective and "obligez" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "obligé" or "obligez"?
"obligé" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,780 in our French list, against #38,948 for "obligez". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

You've compared "obligé" and "obligez". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "obligé" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "obligez" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #238,343 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "obligé" and "obligez" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "obligea vs obligez". 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 #238,343 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