absorbévsabsorbésConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#16,793
“absorbé” frequency rank
#37,142
“absorbés” frequency rank
53935
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature absorbé absorbés
Definition Qualifie une personne profondément appliquée à quelque chose. Masculin pluriel de absorbé.

Same sound, different letters: absorbé vs absorbés

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 7 letters. absorbé runs 7 letters (VCCVCCV) against absorbés's 8 (VCCVCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

7 ch
absorbé
8 ch
absorbés

Same sound, different spelling - absorbé / absorbés

This is the hard kind. absorbé and absorbés are pronounced identically (\ap.sɔʁ.be\) and both work as anadjective. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “absorbé” sits inside “absorbés”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 53935, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

absorbé is recorded at frequency rank #16,793, classified as anadj, pronounced \ap.sɔʁ.be\. absorbés is at rank #37,142, tagged as anadj, pronounced \ap.sɔʁ.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 53935, this pair ranks #137,449 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of absorbé vs absorbés

Shared letters: aborsé. Private to "absorbé": -. Private to "absorbés": -.

"absorbé" · 7 letters · shape VCCVCCV  ·  "absorbés" · 8 letters · shape VCCVCCVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "absorbé" and "absorbés" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are pronounced the same (\ap.sɔʁ.be\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
Frequency check: "absorbé" vs "absorbés" - which ranks higher?
"absorbé" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #16,793 in our French list, against #37,142 for "absorbés". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

You've separated the homophone pair "absorbé" / "absorbés". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.

  • Full dictionary entry for "absorbé" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "absorbés" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #137,449 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "absorbé" and "absorbés" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "absorbées vs absorbés". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #137,449 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