bouchéevsbouchéesWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#16,309
“bouchée” frequency rank
#21,873
“bouchées” frequency rank
38182
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature bouchée bouchées
Definition Morceau d’aliment solide qu’on met dans la bouche. Féminin pluriel de bouché.

Same sound, different letters: bouchée vs bouchées

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

7 ch
bouchée
8 ch
bouchées

Same sound, different spelling - bouchée / bouchées

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: bouchée and bouchées carry the same recorded pronunciation, \bu.ʃe\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is anoun, the other anadjective, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “bouchée” sits inside “bouchées”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 38182, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

bouchée is recorded at frequency rank #16,309, classified as anoun, pronounced \bu.ʃe\. bouchées is at rank #21,873, tagged as anadj, pronounced \bu.ʃe\.

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 38182, this pair ranks #257,079 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of bouchée vs bouchées

Shared letters: bcehoué. Private to "bouchée": -. Private to "bouchées": s.

"bouchée" · 7 letters · shape CVVCCVV  ·  "bouchées" · 8 letters · shape CVVCCVVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "bouchée" and "bouchées" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "bouchée" is a noun and "bouchées" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "bouchée" or "bouchées" show up more?
"bouchée" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #16,309 in our French list, against #21,873 for "bouchées". 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 "bouchée" / "bouchées". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.

  • Full dictionary entry for "bouchée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "bouchées" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #257,079 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "bouchée" and "bouchées" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "bouchées vs bourrées". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #257,079 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