opéréevsopérerWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#18,269
“opérée” frequency rank
#6,861
“opérer” frequency rank
25130
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature opérée opérer
Definition Féminin singulier de opéré. Accomplir une œuvre ; produire un effet ; agir.

Same sound, different letters: opérée vs opérer

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 5 letters.

6 ch
opérée
6 ch
opérer

Same sound, different spelling - opérée / opérer

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: opérée and opérer carry the same recorded pronunciation, \ɔ.pe.ʁe\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is anadjective, the other averb, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 25130, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

opérée is recorded at frequency rank #18,269, classified as anadj, pronounced \ɔ.pe.ʁe\. opérer is at rank #6,861, tagged as averb, pronounced \ɔ.pe.ʁe\.

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 25130, this pair ranks #342,637 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of opérée vs opérer

Shared letters: eopré. Private to "opérée": -. Private to "opérer": -.

"opérée" · 6 letters · shape VCVCVV  ·  "opérer" · 6 letters · shape VCVCVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "opérée" for "opérer" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "opérée" is an adjective and "opérer" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "opérée" or "opérer" show up more?
"opérer" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #6,861 in our French list, against #18,269 for "opérée". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

"opérée" and "opérer" share a sound, keep the gloss open, then jump to the headword or a nearby trap.

  • Full dictionary entry for "opérée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "opérer" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #342,637 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "opérée" and "opérer" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "opérée vs outrée". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #342,637 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