effrayévseffrayésWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#17,697
“effrayé” frequency rank
#26,344
“effrayés” frequency rank
44041
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature effrayé effrayés
Definition Qui est plein de frayeur. Masculin pluriel de effrayé.

Same sound, different letters: effrayé vs effrayés

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

7 ch
effrayé
8 ch
effrayés

Same sound, different spelling - effrayé / effrayés

This is the hard kind. effrayé and effrayés are pronounced identically (\e.fʁɛ.je\) 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) - “effrayé” sits inside “effrayés”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 44041, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

effrayé is recorded at frequency rank #17,697, classified as anadj, pronounced \e.fʁɛ.je\. effrayés is at rank #26,344, tagged as anadj, pronounced \e.fʁɛ.je\.

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 44041, this pair ranks #213,486 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of effrayé vs effrayés

Shared letters: aefryé. Private to "effrayé": -. Private to "effrayés": s.

"effrayé" · 7 letters · shape VCCCVVV  ·  "effrayés" · 8 letters · shape VCCCVVVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "effrayé" and "effrayés" be used interchangeably?
No. They are pronounced the same (\e.fʁɛ.je\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
Which is more common, "effrayé" or "effrayés"?
"effrayé" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #17,697 in our French list, against #26,344 for "effrayés". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "effrayé" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "effrayés" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #213,486 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "effrayé" and "effrayés" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "effrayé vs effréné". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #213,486 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