dessinvsdessinéeTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#2,117
“dessin” frequency rank
#8,374
“dessinée” frequency rank
10491
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature dessin dessinée
Definition Représentation d’objets, de personnages, de paysages, etc. sur une surface à l’aide d’un crayon, à la plume, au pinceau ou par tout autre instrument. Féminin singulier de dessiné.

Where the eye mixes dessin and dessinée

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence.

6 ch
dessin
8 ch
dessinée

Look-alike desk: dessin vs dessinée

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: dessin is \de.sɛ̃\ while dessinée is \de.si.ne\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “dessin” sits inside “dessinée”, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 10491, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

dessin is recorded at frequency rank #2,117, classified as anoun, pronounced \de.sɛ̃\. dessinée is at rank #8,374, tagged as anadj, pronounced \de.si.ne\.

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 10491, this pair ranks #412,784 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of dessin vs dessinée

Shared letters: deins. Private to "dessin": -. Private to "dessinée": é.

"dessin" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "dessinée" · 8 letters · shape CVCCVCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • dessinddessin · desin · desisn · dessinn · dessni · dsesin · edssin

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "dessin" and "dessinée" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "dessin" is a noun and "dessinée" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "dessin" or "dessinée" show up more?
"dessin" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,117 in our French list, against #8,374 for "dessinée". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Eye-level mix-up between "dessin" and "dessinée" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "dessin" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "dessinée" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #412,784 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "dessin" and "dessinée" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "dessina vs dessinée". 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 #412,784 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