émailléevsemballéeTell them apart

Which to use

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

#37,615
“émaillée” frequency rank
#35,013
“emballée” frequency rank
72628
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature émaillée emballée
Definition Féminin singulier de émaillé. Féminin singulier de emballé.

Where the eye mixes émaillée and emballée

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence. émaillée (VCVVCCVV) and emballée (VCCVCCVV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

8 ch
émaillée
8 ch
emballée

Look-alike desk: émaillée vs emballée

A purely visual mix-up. émaillée (\e.ma.je\) and emballée (\ɑ̃.ba.le\) 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 3 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 72628, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

émaillée is recorded at frequency rank #37,615, classified as anadj, pronounced \e.ma.je\. emballée is at rank #35,013, tagged as anadj, pronounced \ɑ̃.ba.le\.

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 72628, this pair ranks #43,339 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of émaillée vs emballée

Shared letters: aelmé. Private to "émaillée": i. Private to "emballée": b.

"émaillée" · 8 letters · shape VCVVCCVV  ·  "emballée" · 8 letters · shape VCCVCCVV

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "émaillée" for "emballée" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\e.ma.je\ versus \ɑ̃.ba.le\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "émaillée" vs "emballée" - which ranks higher?
"emballée" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #35,013 in our French list, against #37,615 for "émaillée". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "émaillée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "emballée" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #43,339 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "émaillée" and "emballée" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "écaille vs émaillée". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #43,339 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