colléesvscouléesWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#33,176
“collées” frequency rank
#26,683
“coulées” frequency rank
59859
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature collées coulées
Definition Participe passé féminin pluriel de coller. Féminin pluriel de coulé.

Where the eye mixes collées and coulées

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence. collées (CVCCVVC) and coulées (CVVCVVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

7 ch
collées
7 ch
coulées

Look-alike desk: collées vs coulées

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: collées is \kɔ.le\ while coulées is \ku.le\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by a single letter - l in “collées” becomes u in “coulées”, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 59859, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

collées is recorded at frequency rank #33,176, classified as averb, pronounced \kɔ.le\. coulées is at rank #26,683, tagged as anadj, pronounced \ku.le\.

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 59859, this pair ranks #100,815 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of collées vs coulées

Shared letters: celosé. Private to "collées": -. Private to "coulées": u.

"collées" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVVC  ·  "coulées" · 7 letters · shape CVVCVVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "collées" and "coulées" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "collées" is a verb and "coulées" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "collées" vs "coulées" - which ranks higher?
"coulées" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #26,683 in our French list, against #33,176 for "collées". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "collées" and "coulées" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "collées" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "coulées" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #100,815 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "collées" and "coulées" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "collées vs collez". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #100,815 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