congésvsconnuesWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#8,826
“congés” frequency rank
#5,019
“connues” frequency rank
13845
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature congés connues
Definition Pluriel de congé. Féminin pluriel de connu.

Where the eye mixes congés and connues

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

6 ch
congés
7 ch
connues

Why the eye confuses congés with connues

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: congés is \kɔ̃.ʒe\ while connues is \kɔ.ny\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 13845, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

congés is recorded at frequency rank #8,826, classified as anoun, pronounced \kɔ̃.ʒe\. connues is at rank #5,019, tagged as anadj, pronounced \kɔ.ny\.

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 13845, this pair ranks #399,311 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of congés vs connues

Shared letters: cnos. Private to "congés": . Private to "connues": eu.

"congés" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "connues" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • connuescconnues · cnonues · conneus · connuess · connuse · conues · conunes · ocnnues

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "congés" and "connues" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "congés" is a noun and "connues" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "congés" or "connues" show up more?
"connues" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #5,019 in our French list, against #8,826 for "congés". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "congés" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "connues" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #399,311 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "congés" and "connues" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "congés vs courges". 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 #399,311 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