Which to use
“treizième” is a noun and “troisième” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #20,008
- “treizième” frequency rank
- #663
- “troisième” frequency rank
- 20671
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | treizième | troisième |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Élément ordinal, correspondant au cardinal treize. | Adjectif ordinal correspondant au cardinal trois. |
Where the eye mixes treizième and troisième
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 7 letters in sequence. treizième and troisième follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CCVVCVVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Look-alike desk: treizième vs troisième
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: treizième is \tʁɛ.zjɛm\ while troisième is \tʁwɑ.zjɛm\. 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 (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 20671, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
treizième is recorded at frequency rank #20,008, classified as anoun, pronounced \tʁɛ.zjɛm\. troisième is at rank #663, tagged as anadj, pronounced \tʁwɑ.zjɛm\.
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 20671, this pair ranks #367,098 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of treizième vs troisième
Shared letters: eimrtè. Private to "treizième": z. Private to "troisième": os.
"treizième" · 9 letters · shape CCVVCVVCV · "troisième" · 9 letters · shape CCVVCVVCV
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "treizième" and "troisième" be used interchangeably?
Frequency check: "treizième" vs "troisième" - which ranks higher?
Useful next steps
Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.
- Full dictionary entry for "treizième" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "troisième" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #367,098 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "treizième" and "troisième" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "treizième vs trentième". Nearby pair
Confusion rank #367,098 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.