Which to use
“appliquée” is an adjective and “appliquer” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #6,462
- “appliquée” frequency rank
- #2,702
- “appliquer” frequency rank
- 9164
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | appliquée | appliquer |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Féminin singulier de appliqué. | Mettre une chose sur une autre, soit pour qu’elle y demeure adhérente, soit pour qu’elle y laisse une empreinte, soit simplement pour qu’elle y touche. |
Same sound, different letters: appliquée vs appliquer
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 8 letters. appliquée (VCCCVCVVV) and appliquer (VCCCVCVVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.
Same sound, different spelling - appliquée / appliquer
Say them out loud and nothing separates them: appliquée and appliquer carry the same recorded pronunciation, \a.pli.ke\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is anadjective, the other averb, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 9164, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
appliquée is recorded at frequency rank #6,462, classified as anadj, pronounced \a.pli.ke\. appliquer is at rank #2,702, tagged as averb, pronounced \a.pli.ke\.
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 9164, this pair ranks #417,592 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of appliquée vs appliquer
Shared letters: aeilpqu. Private to "appliquée": é. Private to "appliquer": r.
"appliquée" · 9 letters · shape VCCCVCVVV · "appliquer" · 9 letters · shape VCCCVCVVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- appliquer ← apliquer · aplpiquer · appilquer · appliqeur · appliqquer · appliquerr · appliqure · appliuqer
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "appliquée" for "appliquer" ever safe?
Which is more common, "appliquée" or "appliquer"?
What to do next
"appliquée" and "appliquer" share a sound, keep the gloss open, then jump to the headword or a nearby trap.
- Full dictionary entry for "appliquée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "appliquer" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #417,592 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "appliquée" and "appliquer" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "appliquée vs appliquez". 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 #417,592 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.