Which to use
“offense” and “offensive” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #18,813
- “offense” frequency rank
- #5,684
- “offensive” frequency rank
- 24497
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | offense | offensive |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Injure de fait ou de parole. | Attaque que l’on fait sans avoir été provoqué par l’adversaire. |
Where the eye mixes offense and offensive
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 7 letters in sequence.
Why the eye confuses offense with offensive
A purely visual mix-up. offense (\ɔ.fɑ̃s\) and offensive (\ɔ.fɑ̃.siv\) 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 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 24497, 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\. offensive is at rank #5,684, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ɔ.fɑ̃.siv\.
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 24497, this pair ranks #346,289 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of offense vs offensive
Shared letters: efnos. Private to "offense": -. Private to "offensive": iv.
"offense" · 7 letters · shape VCCVCCV · "offensive" · 9 letters · shape VCCVCCVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "offense" and "offensive" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "offense" or "offensive" show up more?
After this comparison
Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.
- Full dictionary entry for "offense" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "offensive" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #346,289 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "offense" and "offensive" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "offense vs offensée". 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 #346,289 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.