congelervscongelésWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#36,775
“congeler” frequency rank
#35,437
“congelés” frequency rank
72212
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature congeler congelés
Definition Faire passer un liquide à l’état solide. Masculin pluriel de congelé.

Same sound, different letters: congeler vs congelés

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 6 letters. congeler and congelés follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCVCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

8 ch
congeler
8 ch
congelés

Same sound, different spelling - congeler / congelés

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: congeler and congelés carry the same recorded pronunciation, \kɔ̃ʒ.le\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is averb, the other anadjective, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 72212, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

congeler is recorded at frequency rank #36,775, classified as averb, pronounced \kɔ̃ʒ.le\. congelés is at rank #35,437, tagged as anadj, pronounced \kɔ̃ʒ.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 72212, this pair ranks #44,800 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of congeler vs congelés

Shared letters: ceglno. Private to "congeler": r. Private to "congelés": sé.

"congeler" · 8 letters · shape CVCCVCVC  ·  "congelés" · 8 letters · shape CVCCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • congeler ← ccongeler · cnogeler · cogneler · conegler · congeelr · congelerr · congeller · congelre

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "congeler" and "congelés" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "congeler" is a verb and "congelés" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "congeler" or "congelés"?
"congelés" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #35,437 in our French list, against #36,775 for "congeler". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

"congeler" and "congelés" share a sound, keep the gloss open, then jump to the headword or a nearby trap.

  • Full dictionary entry for "congeler" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "congelés" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #44,800 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "congeler" and "congelés" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "congeler vs congélo". 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 #44,800 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