opposéevsopposerWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: opposée is a noun, opposer is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“opposée” is a noun and “opposer” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#9,524
“opposée” frequency rank
#5,373
“opposer” frequency rank
14897
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature opposée opposer
Definition Celle qui est opposée, contraire, ou à l’opposé. Mettre une chose vis-à-vis d’une autre, ou en placer plusieurs de manière à faire contraste.

Where the eye mixes opposée and opposer

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence.

7 ch
opposée
7 ch
opposer

Look-alike desk: opposée vs opposer

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: opposée is \ɔ.pɔ.ze\ while opposer is \ɔ.po.ze\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 14897, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

opposée is recorded at frequency rank #9,524, classified as anoun, pronounced \ɔ.pɔ.ze\. opposer is at rank #5,373, tagged as averb, pronounced \ɔ.po.ze\.

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 14897, this pair ranks #394,729 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of opposée vs opposer

Shared letters: eops. Private to "opposée": é. Private to "opposer": r.

"opposée" · 7 letters · shape VCCVCVV  ·  "opposer" · 7 letters · shape VCCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • opposeropopser · oposer · oppoesr · opposerr · opposre · opposser · oppsoer · poposer

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "opposée" for "opposer" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "opposée" is a noun and "opposer" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "opposée" or "opposer" show up more?
"opposer" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #5,373 in our French list, against #9,524 for "opposée". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "opposée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "opposer" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #394,729 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "opposée" and "opposer" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "opposée vs opposera". 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 #394,729 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