précipitéevsprécipiterTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#31,663
“précipitée” frequency rank
#15,975
“précipiter” frequency rank
47638
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature précipitée précipiter
Definition Féminin singulier de précipité. Jeter, faire tomber d’un lieu élevé.

Same sound, different letters: précipitée vs précipiter

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 9 letters. précipitée (CCVCVCVCVV) and précipiter (CCVCVCVCVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

10 ch
précipitée
10 ch
précipiter

Same sound, different spelling - précipitée / précipiter

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: précipitée and précipiter carry the same recorded pronunciation, \pʁe.si.pi.te\. 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 47638, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

précipitée is recorded at frequency rank #31,663, classified as anadj, pronounced \pʁe.si.pi.te\. précipiter is at rank #15,975, tagged as averb, 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 47638, this pair ranks #185,367 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of précipitée vs précipiter

Shared letters: ceiprté. Private to "précipitée": -. Private to "précipiter": -.

"précipitée" · 10 letters · shape CCVCVCVCVV  ·  "précipiter" · 10 letters · shape CCVCVCVCVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "précipitée" for "précipiter" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "précipitée" is an adjective and "précipiter" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "précipitée" or "précipiter" show up more?
"précipiter" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #15,975 in our French list, against #31,663 for "précipitée". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "précipitée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "précipiter" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #185,367 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "précipitée" and "précipiter" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "précipita vs précipitée". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #185,367 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