plombévsplomberWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#35,644
“plombé” frequency rank
#36,103
“plomber” frequency rank
71747
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature plombé plomber
Definition Qui est couvert de plomb, qui contient du plomb ou qui est composé de plomb. Mettre, attacher, appliquer du plomb à quelque chose, en quelque lieu.

Same sound, different letters: plombé vs plomber

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

6 ch
plombé
7 ch
plomber

Ear matches; page differs - plombé and plomber

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: plombé and plomber carry the same recorded pronunciation, \plɔ̃.be\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is anadjective, the other averb, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 71747, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

plombé is recorded at frequency rank #35,644, classified as anadj, pronounced \plɔ̃.be\. plomber is at rank #36,103, tagged as averb, pronounced \plɔ̃.be\.

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 71747, this pair ranks #46,430 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of plombé vs plomber

Shared letters: blmop. Private to "plombé": é. Private to "plomber": er.

"plombé" · 6 letters · shape CCVCCV  ·  "plomber" · 7 letters · shape CCVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • plomberlpomber · pllomber · plmober · plobmer · plombber · plomberr · plombre · plomebr

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "plombé" for "plomber" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "plombé" is an adjective and "plomber" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "plombé" vs "plomber" - which ranks higher?
"plombé" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #35,644 in our French list, against #36,103 for "plomber". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

You've separated the homophone pair "plombé" / "plomber". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.

  • Full dictionary entry for "plombé" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "plomber" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #46,430 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "plombé" and "plomber" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "plomber vs plombiers". 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 #46,430 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