préceptevsprécipitéWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: précepte is a noun, précipité is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“précepte” is a noun and “précipité” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#47,536
“précepte” frequency rank
#15,976
“précipité” frequency rank
63512
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature précepte précipité
Definition Règle ; leçon ; enseignement. Hâté, accéléré, prompt, rapide voire impétueux.

Where the eye mixes précepte and précipité

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence. précepte runs 8 letters (CCVCVCCV) against précipité's 9 (CCVCVCVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

8 ch
précepte
9 ch
précipité

Visual trap between précepte and précipité

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: précepte is \pʁe.sɛpt\ while précipité is \pʁe.si.pi.te\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 63512, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

précepte is recorded at frequency rank #47,536, classified as anoun, pronounced \pʁe.sɛpt\. précipité is at rank #15,976, tagged as anadj, pronounced \pʁe.si.pi.te\.

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 63512, this pair ranks #81,590 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of précepte vs précipité

Shared letters: cprté. Private to "précepte": e. Private to "précipité": i.

"précepte" · 8 letters · shape CCVCVCCV  ·  "précipité" · 9 letters · shape CCVCVCVCV

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "précepte" and "précipité" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "précepte" is a noun and "précipité" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "précepte" or "précipité"?
"précipité" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #15,976 in our French list, against #47,536 for "précepte". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "précepte" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "précipité" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #81,590 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "précepte" and "précipité" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "précepte vs précité". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #81,590 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