duchévsduchésWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#9,815
“duché” frequency rank
#39,757
“duchés” frequency rank
49572
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature duché duchés
Definition Seigneurie, principauté à laquelle le titre de duc est attaché. Pluriel de duché.

Same sound, different letters: duché vs duchés

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 5 letters. duché runs 5 letters (CVCCV) against duchés's 6 (CVCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
duché
6 ch
duchés

Same sound, different spelling - duché / duchés

This is the hard kind. duché and duchés are pronounced identically (\dy.ʃe\) and both work as anoun. 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) - “duché” sits inside “duchés”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 49572, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

duché is recorded at frequency rank #9,815, classified as anoun, pronounced \dy.ʃe\. duchés is at rank #39,757, tagged as anoun, pronounced \dy.ʃe\.

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 49572, this pair ranks #169,549 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of duché vs duchés

Shared letters: cdhué. Private to "duché": -. Private to "duchés": s.

"duché" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "duchés" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "duché" and "duchés" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are pronounced the same (\dy.ʃe\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
Frequency check: "duché" vs "duchés" - which ranks higher?
"duché" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #9,815 in our French list, against #39,757 for "duchés". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "duché" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "duchés" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #169,549 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "duché" and "duchés" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "dèche vs duchés". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #169,549 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