couchévscouchezWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: couché is a adjective, couchez is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#6,487
“couché” frequency rank
#37,751
“couchez” frequency rank
44238
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature couché couchez
Definition Allongé sur un lit, généralement pour dormir. Deuxième personne du pluriel de l’indicatif présent de coucher.

Same sound, different letters: couché vs couchez

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 5 letters. couché runs 6 letters (CVVCCV) against couchez's 7 (CVVCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
couché
7 ch
couchez

Homophone desk: couché vs couchez

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: couché and couchez carry the same recorded pronunciation, \ku.ʃe\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is anadjective, the other averb, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 44238, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

couché is recorded at frequency rank #6,487, classified as anadj, pronounced \ku.ʃe\. couchez is at rank #37,751, tagged as averb, pronounced \ku.ʃe\.

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 44238, this pair ranks #212,006 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of couché vs couchez

Shared letters: chou. Private to "couché": é. Private to "couchez": ez.

"couché" · 6 letters · shape CVVCCV  ·  "couchez" · 7 letters · shape CVVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • couchez ← ccouchez · cocuhez · coucchez · coucehz · couchezz · couchhez · couchze · couhcez

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "couché" for "couchez" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "couché" is an adjective and "couchez" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "couché" or "couchez"?
"couché" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #6,487 in our French list, against #37,751 for "couchez". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "couché" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "couchez" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #212,006 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "couché" and "couchez" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "coaches vs couchez". 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 #212,006 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