Which to use
“dress” is a verb and “dresse” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #34,990
- “dress” frequency rank
- #8,988
- “dresse” frequency rank
- 43978
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | dress | dresse |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Deuxième personne du singulier de l’impératif présent de dressen. | Rédaction d'un devis. |
Same sound, different letters: dress vs dresse
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 5 letters. dress runs 5 letters (CCVCC) against dresse's 6 (CCVCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Ear matches; page differs - dress and dresse
Say them out loud and nothing separates them: dress and dresse carry the same recorded pronunciation, \dʁɛs\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is averb, the other anoun, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “dress” sits inside “dresse”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 43978, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
dress is recorded at frequency rank #34,990, classified as averb, pronounced \dʁɛs\. dresse is at rank #8,988, tagged as anoun, pronounced \dʁɛs\.
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 43978, this pair ranks #213,957 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of dress vs dresse
Shared letters: ders. Private to "dress": -. Private to "dresse": -.
"dress" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC · "dresse" · 6 letters · shape CCVCCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "dress" for "dresse" ever safe?
Which is more common, "dress" or "dresse"?
Useful next steps
You've separated the homophone pair "dress" / "dresse". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.
- Full dictionary entry for "dress" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "dresse" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #213,957 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "dress" and "dresse" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "dress vs Drs". 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 #213,957 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.