verbevsvexéeTell them apart

Quick tell: verbe is a noun, vexée is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#6,146
“verbe” frequency rank
#40,075
“vexée” frequency rank
46221
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature verbe vexée
Definition Partie du discours qui exprime soit une action faite ou supportée par le sujet, soit un état ou une manière d’être du sujet, et qui, pour les exprimer, possède un certain nombre de formes diverses dont l’ensemble est appelé conjugaison, lesquelles formes expriment son sujet et le temps de la proposition. Féminin singulier de vexé.

Where the eye mixes verbe and vexée

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. verbe (CVCCV) and vexée (CVCVV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

5 ch
verbe
5 ch
vexée

Look-alike desk: verbe vs vexée

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: verbe is \vɛʁb\ while vexée is \vɛk.se\. 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 46221, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

verbe is recorded at frequency rank #6,146, classified as anoun, pronounced \vɛʁb\. vexée is at rank #40,075, tagged as anadj, pronounced \vɛk.se\.

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 46221, this pair ranks #196,646 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of verbe vs vexée

Shared letters: ev. Private to "verbe": br. Private to "vexée": xé.

"verbe" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "vexée" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • verbe ← evrbe · vebre · verbbe · vereb · verrbe · vrebe · vverbe

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "verbe" for "vexée" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "verbe" is a noun and "vexée" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "verbe" or "vexée" show up more?
"verbe" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #6,146 in our French list, against #40,075 for "vexée". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

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 "verbe" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "vexée" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #196,646 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "verbe" and "vexée" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Vevey vs vexée". 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 #196,646 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