diminuévsdiminuésWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#7,679
“diminué” frequency rank
#47,830
“diminués” frequency rank
55509
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature diminué diminués
Definition Qui a été rendu plus petit. Masculin pluriel de diminué.

Same sound, different letters: diminué vs diminués

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 7 letters. diminué runs 7 letters (CVCVCVV) against diminués's 8 (CVCVCVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

7 ch
diminué
8 ch
diminués

Ear matches; page differs - diminué and diminués

This is the hard kind. diminué and diminués are pronounced identically (\di.mi.nɥe\) 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) - “diminué” sits inside “diminués”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 55509, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

diminué is recorded at frequency rank #7,679, classified as anadj, pronounced \di.mi.nɥe\. diminués is at rank #47,830, tagged as anadj, pronounced \di.mi.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 55509, this pair ranks #127,039 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of diminué vs diminués

Shared letters: dimnué. Private to "diminué": -. Private to "diminués": s.

"diminué" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVV  ·  "diminués" · 8 letters · shape CVCVCVVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "diminué" for "diminués" ever safe?
No. They are pronounced the same (\di.mi.nɥe\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
In ordinary French text, does "diminué" or "diminués" show up more?
"diminué" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #7,679 in our French list, against #47,830 for "diminués". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "diminué" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "diminués" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #127,039 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "diminué" and "diminués" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "diminués vs dominus". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #127,039 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