conçuvsconçutTell them apart

Which to use

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

#3,323
“conçu” frequency rank
#42,807
“conçut” frequency rank
46130
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature conçu conçut
Definition Participe passé masculin singulier de concevoir. Troisième personne du singulier du passé simple de concevoir.

Same sound, different letters: conçu vs conçut

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 5 letters.

5 ch
conçu
6 ch
conçut

Same sound, different spelling - conçu / conçut

This is the hard kind. conçu and conçut are pronounced identically (\kɔ̃.sy\) and both work as averb. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “conçu” sits inside “conçut”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 46130, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

conçu is recorded at frequency rank #3,323, classified as averb, pronounced \kɔ̃.sy\. conçut is at rank #42,807, tagged as averb, pronounced \kɔ̃.sy\.

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 46130, this pair ranks #197,369 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of conçu vs conçut

Shared letters: cnouç. Private to "conçu": -. Private to "conçut": t.

"conçu" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "conçut" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "conçu" and "conçut" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are pronounced the same (\kɔ̃.sy\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
Frequency check: "conçu" vs "conçut" - which ranks higher?
"conçu" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,323 in our French list, against #42,807 for "conçut". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "conçu" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "conçut" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #197,369 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "conçu" and "conçut" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "conçut vs cont". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #197,369 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