cédéesvscellesTell them apart

Quick tell: cédées is a verb, celles is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“cédées” is a verb and “celles” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#38,237
“cédées” frequency rank
#704
“celles” frequency rank
38941
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cédées celles
Definition Participe passé féminin pluriel du verbe céder. Pluriel de celle.

Where the eye mixes cédées and celles

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

6 ch
cédées
6 ch
celles

Look-alike desk: cédées vs celles

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: cédées is \se.de\ while celles is \sɛl\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 38941, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cédées is recorded at frequency rank #38,237, classified as averb, pronounced \se.de\. celles is at rank #704, tagged as anoun, pronounced \sɛl\.

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 38941, this pair ranks #251,706 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of cédées vs celles

Shared letters: ces. Private to "cédées": . Private to "celles": l.

"cédées" · 6 letters · shape CVCVVC  ·  "celles" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • cellesccelles · celels · celes · celless · cellse · cleles · eclles

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "cédées" and "celles" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "cédées" is a verb and "celles" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "cédées" or "celles" show up more?
"celles" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #704 in our French list, against #38,237 for "cédées". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "cédées" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "celles" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #251,706 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cédées" and "celles" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "cédées vs cuvées". 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 #251,706 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