émigrervsémigrésConfusable pair

Quick tell: émigrer is a verb, émigrés is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“émigrer” is a verb and “émigrés” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#28,028
“émigrer” frequency rank
#21,213
“émigrés” frequency rank
49241
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature émigrer émigrés
Definition Quitter son pays pour aller s’établir dans un autre. Masculin pluriel de émigré.

Same sound, different letters: émigrer vs émigrés

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 5 letters. émigrer and émigrés follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (VCVCCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

7 ch
émigrer
7 ch
émigrés

Same sound, different spelling - émigrer / émigrés

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: émigrer and émigrés carry the same recorded pronunciation, \e.mi.ɡʁe\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is averb, the other anadjective, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 49241, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

émigrer is recorded at frequency rank #28,028, classified as averb, pronounced \e.mi.ɡʁe\. émigrés is at rank #21,213, tagged as anadj, pronounced \e.mi.ɡʁe\.

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 49241, this pair ranks #172,246 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of émigrer vs émigrés

Shared letters: gimré. Private to "émigrer": e. Private to "émigrés": s.

"émigrer" · 7 letters · shape VCVCCVC  ·  "émigrés" · 7 letters · shape VCVCCVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "émigrer" for "émigrés" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "émigrer" is a verb and "émigrés" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "émigrer" vs "émigrés" - which ranks higher?
"émigrés" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #21,213 in our French list, against #28,028 for "émigrer". 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 "émigrer" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "émigrés" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #172,246 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "émigrer" and "émigrés" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "émigrés vs érigées". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #172,246 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