désignéevsdésignéesTell them apart

Which to use

“désignée” and “désignées” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#12,957
“désignée” frequency rank
#24,564
“désignées” frequency rank
37521
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature désignée désignées
Definition Féminin singulier de désigné. Féminin pluriel de désigné.

Same sound, different letters: désignée vs désignées

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 8 letters. désignée runs 8 letters (CVCVCCVV) against désignées's 9 (CVCVCCVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

8 ch
désignée
9 ch
désignées

Same sound, different spelling - désignée / désignées

This is the hard kind. désignée and désignées are pronounced identically (\de.zi.ɲe\) and both work as anadjective. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “désignée” sits inside “désignées”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 37521, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

désignée is recorded at frequency rank #12,957, classified as anadj, pronounced \de.zi.ɲe\. désignées is at rank #24,564, tagged as anadj, pronounced \de.zi.ɲe\.

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 37521, this pair ranks #261,913 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of désignée vs désignées

Shared letters: deginsé. Private to "désignée": -. Private to "désignées": -.

"désignée" · 8 letters · shape CVCVCCVV  ·  "désignées" · 9 letters · shape CVCVCCVVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "désignée" and "désignées" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are pronounced the same (\de.zi.ɲe\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
Frequency check: "désignée" vs "désignées" - which ranks higher?
"désignée" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #12,957 in our French list, against #24,564 for "désignées". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Sound matches; spelling doesn't. Use the exits below to lock the right form or check a cousin pair.

  • Full dictionary entry for "désignée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "désignées" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #261,913 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "désignée" and "désignées" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "désignées vs désirées". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #261,913 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