offensevsoffenséeWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#18,813
“offense” frequency rank
#48,079
“offensée” frequency rank
66892
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature offense offensée
Definition Injure de fait ou de parole. Celle qui subit ou a subi une offense.

Where the eye mixes offense and offensée

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

7 ch
offense
8 ch
offensée

Look-alike desk: offense vs offensée

A purely visual mix-up. offense (\ɔ.fɑ̃s\) and offensée (\ɔ.fɑ̃.se\) 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 66892, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

offense is recorded at frequency rank #18,813, classified as anoun, pronounced \ɔ.fɑ̃s\. offensée is at rank #48,079, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ɔ.fɑ̃.se\.

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 66892, this pair ranks #65,835 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of offense vs offensée

Shared letters: efnos. Private to "offense": -. Private to "offensée": é.

"offense" · 7 letters · shape VCCVCCV  ·  "offensée" · 8 letters · shape VCCVCCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • offensefofense · ofefnse · ofense · offenes · offennse · offensse · offesne · offnese

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "offense" and "offensée" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\ɔ.fɑ̃s\ versus \ɔ.fɑ̃.se\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "offense" vs "offensée" - which ranks higher?
"offense" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #18,813 in our French list, against #48,079 for "offensée". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "offense" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "offensée" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #65,835 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "offense" and "offensée" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "offensée vs offensés". 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 #65,835 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