arrivévsarrivéesTell them apart

Which to use

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

#995
“arrivé” frequency rank
#9,431
“arrivées” frequency rank
10426
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature arrivé arrivées
Definition Qui est arrivé. Féminin pluriel de arrivé.

Same sound, different letters: arrivé vs arrivées

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 6 letters. arrivé runs 6 letters (VCCVCV) against arrivées's 8 (VCCVCVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
arrivé
8 ch
arrivées

Ear matches; page differs - arrivé and arrivées

This is the hard kind. arrivé and arrivées are pronounced identically (\a.ʁi.ve\) 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 2 extra letter(s) - “arrivé” sits inside “arrivées”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 10426, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

arrivé is recorded at frequency rank #995, classified as anadj, pronounced \a.ʁi.ve\. arrivées is at rank #9,431, tagged as anadj, pronounced \a.ʁi.ve\.

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 10426, this pair ranks #413,045 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of arrivé vs arrivées

Shared letters: airvé. Private to "arrivé": -. Private to "arrivées": es.

"arrivé" · 6 letters · shape VCCVCV  ·  "arrivées" · 8 letters · shape VCCVCVVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "arrivé" and "arrivées" be used interchangeably?
No. They are pronounced the same (\a.ʁi.ve\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
Which is more common, "arrivé" or "arrivées"?
"arrivé" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #995 in our French list, against #9,431 for "arrivées". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "arrivé" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "arrivées" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #413,045 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "arrivé" and "arrivées" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "arrivées vs arrosées". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #413,045 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