échouéevsécrouleWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#48,277
“échouée” frequency rank
#19,432
“écroule” frequency rank
67709
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature échouée écroule
Definition Participe passé féminin singulier de échouer. Première personne du singulier du présent de l’indicatif de écrouler.

Where the eye mixes échouée and écroule

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. échouée (VCCVVVV) and écroule (VCCVVCV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

7 ch
échouée
7 ch
écroule

Visual trap between échouée and écroule

A purely visual mix-up. échouée (\e.ʃwe\) and écroule (\e.kʁul\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 67709, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

échouée is recorded at frequency rank #48,277, classified as averb, pronounced \e.ʃwe\. écroule is at rank #19,432, tagged as averb, pronounced \e.kʁul\.

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 67709, this pair ranks #62,221 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of échouée vs écroule

Shared letters: ceoué. Private to "échouée": h. Private to "écroule": lr.

"échouée" · 7 letters · shape VCCVVVV  ·  "écroule" · 7 letters · shape VCCVVCV

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "échouée" and "écroule" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\e.ʃwe\ versus \e.kʁul\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "échouée" or "écroule"?
"écroule" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #19,432 in our French list, against #48,277 for "échouée". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "échouée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "écroule" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #62,221 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "échouée" and "écroule" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "échouée vs échoués". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #62,221 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