ravagéevsrivagesConfusable pair

Quick tell: ravagée is a adjective, rivages is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#27,591
“ravagée” frequency rank
#20,843
“rivages” frequency rank
48434
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature ravagée rivages
Definition Féminin singulier de ravagé. Pluriel de rivage.

Where the eye mixes ravagée and rivages

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. ravagée (CVCVCVV) and rivages (CVCVCVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

7 ch
ravagée
7 ch
rivages

Visual trap between ravagée and rivages

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: ravagée is \ʁa.va.ʒe\ while rivages is \ʁi.vaʒ\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 48434, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ravagée is recorded at frequency rank #27,591, classified as anadj, pronounced \ʁa.va.ʒe\. rivages is at rank #20,843, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ʁi.vaʒ\.

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 48434, this pair ranks #178,970 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of ravagée vs rivages

Shared letters: aegrv. Private to "ravagée": é. Private to "rivages": is.

"ravagée" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVV  ·  "rivages" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • rivages ← irvages · riavges · rivaegs · rivagess · rivagges · rivagse · rivgaes · rivvages

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "ravagée" and "rivages" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "ravagée" is an adjective and "rivages" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "ravagée" or "rivages"?
"rivages" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #20,843 in our French list, against #27,591 for "ravagée". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "ravagée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "rivages" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #178,970 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "ravagée" and "rivages" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ravagée vs ravagés". 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 #178,970 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