Which to use
“surveillance” and “surveillante” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #2,391
- “surveillance” frequency rank
- #47,630
- “surveillante” frequency rank
- 50021
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | surveillance | surveillante |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Action de surveiller. | Personne qui surveille. |
Where the eye mixes surveillance and surveillante
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 11 letters in sequence.
Look-alike desk: surveillance vs surveillante
A purely visual mix-up. surveillance (\syʁ.vɛ.jɑ̃s\) and surveillante (\syʁ.vɛ.jɑ̃t\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by a single letter - c in “surveillance” becomes t in “surveillante”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 50021, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
surveillance is recorded at frequency rank #2,391, classified as anoun, pronounced \syʁ.vɛ.jɑ̃s\. surveillante is at rank #47,630, tagged as anoun, pronounced \syʁ.vɛ.jɑ̃t\.
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 50021, this pair ranks #165,914 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of surveillance vs surveillante
Shared letters: aeilnrsuv. Private to "surveillance": c. Private to "surveillante": t.
"surveillance" · 12 letters · shape CVCCVVCCVCCV · "surveillante" · 12 letters · shape CVCCVVCCVCCV
Known mistypes of this pair
- surveillance ← sruveillance · ssurveillance · surevillance · surrveillance · surveilalnce · surveilance · surveillacne · surveillancce
- surveillante ← sruveillante · ssurveillante · surevillante · surrveillante · surveilalnte · surveilante · surveillanet · surveillannte
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "surveillance" and "surveillante" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "surveillance" or "surveillante" show up more?
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 "surveillance" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "surveillante" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #165,914 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "surveillance" and "surveillante" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "surveillait vs surveillante". 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 #165,914 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.