appuyervsappuyésWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: appuyer is a verb, appuyés is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“appuyer” is a verb and “appuyés” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#4,546
“appuyer” frequency rank
#18,116
“appuyés” frequency rank
22662
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature appuyer appuyés
Definition Placer contre quelque chose. Masculin pluriel de appuyé.

Same sound, different letters: appuyer vs appuyés

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 5 letters. appuyer and appuyés follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (VCCVVVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

7 ch
appuyer
7 ch
appuyés

Homophone desk: appuyer vs appuyés

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: appuyer and appuyés carry the same recorded pronunciation, \a.pɥi.je\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is averb, the other anadjective, 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 22662, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

appuyer is recorded at frequency rank #4,546, classified as averb, pronounced \a.pɥi.je\. appuyés is at rank #18,116, tagged as anadj, pronounced \a.pɥi.je\.

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 22662, this pair ranks #356,772 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of appuyer vs appuyés

Shared letters: apuy. Private to "appuyer": er. Private to "appuyés": sé.

"appuyer" · 7 letters · shape VCCVVVC  ·  "appuyés" · 7 letters · shape VCCVVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • appuyer ← appueyr · appuyerr · appuyre · appuyyer · appyuer · apupyer · apuyer · papuyer

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "appuyer" and "appuyés" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "appuyer" is a verb and "appuyés" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "appuyer" vs "appuyés" - which ranks higher?
"appuyer" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #4,546 in our French list, against #18,116 for "appuyés". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "appuyer" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "appuyés" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #356,772 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "appuyer" and "appuyés" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "appuya vs appuyés". 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 #356,772 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