coupéevscoupéesTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#9,633
“coupée” frequency rank
#14,648
“coupées” frequency rank
24281
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature coupée coupées
Definition Coupure du pont d’un navire de commerce dont l’arrière est exhaussé pour donner aux cabines plus d’élévation. Féminin pluriel de coupé.

Same sound, different letters: coupée vs coupées

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 6 letters.

6 ch
coupée
7 ch
coupées

Ear matches; page differs - coupée and coupées

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: coupée and coupées carry the same recorded pronunciation, \ku.pe\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is anoun, the other anadjective, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “coupée” sits inside “coupées”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 24281, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

coupée is recorded at frequency rank #9,633, classified as anoun, pronounced \ku.pe\. coupées is at rank #14,648, tagged as anadj, pronounced \ku.pe\.

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 24281, this pair ranks #347,498 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of coupée vs coupées

Shared letters: ceopué. Private to "coupée": -. Private to "coupées": s.

"coupée" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVV  ·  "coupées" · 7 letters · shape CVVCVVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "coupée" for "coupées" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "coupée" is a noun and "coupées" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "coupée" or "coupées"?
"coupée" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #9,633 in our French list, against #14,648 for "coupées". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "coupée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "coupées" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #347,498 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "coupée" and "coupées" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "coupées vs courges". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #347,498 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