denréevsdénuésWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#36,348
“denrée” frequency rank
#42,844
“dénués” frequency rank
79192
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature denrée dénués
Definition Tout ce qui se vend pour la nourriture des hommes ou des animaux. Masculin pluriel de dénué.

Where the eye mixes denrée and dénués

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. denrée (CVCCVV) and dénués (CVCVVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

6 ch
denrée
6 ch
dénués

Look-alike desk: denrée vs dénués

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: denrée is \dɑ̃.ʁe\ while dénués is \de.nɥe\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 79192, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

denrée is recorded at frequency rank #36,348, classified as anoun, pronounced \dɑ̃.ʁe\. dénués is at rank #42,844, tagged as anadj, pronounced \de.nɥe\.

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 79192, this pair ranks #23,889 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of denrée vs dénués

Shared letters: dné. Private to "denrée": er. Private to "dénués": su.

"denrée" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVV  ·  "dénués" · 6 letters · shape CVCVVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "denrée" for "dénués" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "denrée" is a noun and "dénués" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "denrée" or "dénués" show up more?
"denrée" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #36,348 in our French list, against #42,844 for "dénués". 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 "denrée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "dénués" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #23,889 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "denrée" and "dénués" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "déçues vs dénués". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #23,889 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