prostituéevsprostituerWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#10,767
“prostituée” frequency rank
#35,220
“prostituer” frequency rank
45987
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature prostituée prostituer
Definition Femme dont la profession consiste à avoir des rapports sexuels pour de l’argent. Vendre ou louer une personne à un tiers, généralement un homme, pour la jouissance sexuelle personnelle de ce dernier.

Same sound, different letters: prostituée vs prostituer

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

10 ch
prostituée
10 ch
prostituer

Ear matches; page differs - prostituée and prostituer

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: prostituée and prostituer carry the same recorded pronunciation, \pʁɔs.ti.tɥe\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is anoun, 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 45987, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

prostituée is recorded at frequency rank #10,767, classified as anoun, pronounced \pʁɔs.ti.tɥe\. prostituer is at rank #35,220, tagged as averb, pronounced \pʁɔs.ti.tɥe\.

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 45987, this pair ranks #198,527 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of prostituée vs prostituer

Shared letters: eioprstu. Private to "prostituée": é. Private to "prostituer": -.

"prostituée" · 10 letters · shape CCVCCVCVVV  ·  "prostituer" · 10 letters · shape CCVCCVCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • prostituer ← porstituer · pprostituer · prosittuer · prosstituer · prostiteur · prostittuer · prostituerr · prostiture

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "prostituée" for "prostituer" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "prostituée" is a noun and "prostituer" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "prostituée" or "prostituer" show up more?
"prostituée" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #10,767 in our French list, against #35,220 for "prostituer". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "prostituée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "prostituer" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #198,527 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "prostituée" and "prostituer" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "prostituer vs prostitués". 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 #198,527 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