souhaitéevssouhaiterWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

“souhaitée” and “souhaiter” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#20,858
“souhaitée” frequency rank
#6,762
“souhaiter” frequency rank
27620
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature souhaitée souhaiter
Definition Participe passé féminin singulier de souhaiter. Former un souhait.

Where the eye mixes souhaitée and souhaiter

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 8 letters in sequence. souhaitée (CVVCVVCVV) and souhaiter (CVVCVVCVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

9 ch
souhaitée
9 ch
souhaiter

Look-alike desk: souhaitée vs souhaiter

A purely visual mix-up. souhaitée (\swɛ.te\) and souhaiter (\swe.te\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 27620, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

souhaitée is recorded at frequency rank #20,858, classified as averb, pronounced \swɛ.te\. souhaiter is at rank #6,762, tagged as averb, pronounced \swe.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 27620, this pair ranks #327,876 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of souhaitée vs souhaiter

Shared letters: aehiostu. Private to "souhaitée": é. Private to "souhaiter": r.

"souhaitée" · 9 letters · shape CVVCVVCVV  ·  "souhaiter" · 9 letters · shape CVVCVVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • souhaiterosuhaiter · sohuaiter · souahiter · souhaietr · souhaiterr · souhaitre · souhaitter · souhatier

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "souhaitée" and "souhaiter" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\swɛ.te\ versus \swe.te\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "souhaitée" vs "souhaiter" - which ranks higher?
"souhaiter" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #6,762 in our French list, against #20,858 for "souhaitée". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "souhaitée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "souhaiter" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #327,876 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "souhaitée" and "souhaiter" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "souhaiter vs souhaiterai". 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 #327,876 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