Which to use
“tombais” is a verb and “tombées” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #46,492
- “tombais” frequency rank
- #18,345
- “tombées” frequency rank
- 64837
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | tombais | tombées |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Première personne du singulier de l’imparfait de l’indicatif de tomber. | Féminin pluriel de tombé. |
Where the eye mixes tombais and tombées
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. tombais and tombées follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCVVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Look-alike desk: tombais vs tombées
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: tombais is \tɔ̃.bɛ\ while tombées is \tɔ̃.be\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 64837, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
tombais is recorded at frequency rank #46,492, classified as averb, pronounced \tɔ̃.bɛ\. tombées is at rank #18,345, tagged as anadj, pronounced \tɔ̃.be\.
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 64837, this pair ranks #75,118 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of tombais vs tombées
Shared letters: bmost. Private to "tombais": ai. Private to "tombées": eé.
"tombais" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVVC · "tombées" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- tombais ← otmbais · tmobais · tobmais · tomabis · tombaiss · tombasi · tombbais · tombias
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "tombais" for "tombées" ever safe?
Which is more common, "tombais" or "tombées"?
What to do next
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "tombais" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "tombées" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #75,118 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "tombais" and "tombées" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "tombais vs tombons". 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 #75,118 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.