employéevsemployésConfusable pair

Quick tell: employée is a noun, employés is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“employée” is a noun and “employés” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#7,821
“employée” frequency rank
#1,701
“employés” frequency rank
9522
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature employée employés
Definition Celle qui est rétribuée pour produire un travail au sein d’une entreprise ou d’une administration. Masculin pluriel de employé.

Same sound, different letters: employée vs employés

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 7 letters. employée (VCCCVVVV) and employés (VCCCVVVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

8 ch
employée
8 ch
employés

Homophone desk: employée vs employés

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: employée and employés carry the same recorded pronunciation, \ɑ̃.plwa.je\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is anoun, the other anadjective, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They differ by a single letter - e in “employée” becomes s in “employés”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 9522, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

employée is recorded at frequency rank #7,821, classified as anoun, pronounced \ɑ̃.plwa.je\. employés is at rank #1,701, tagged as anadj, pronounced \ɑ̃.plwa.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 9522, this pair ranks #416,339 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of employée vs employés

Shared letters: elmopyé. Private to "employée": -. Private to "employés": s.

"employée" · 8 letters · shape VCCCVVVV  ·  "employés" · 8 letters · shape VCCCVVVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "employée" and "employés" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "employée" is a noun and "employés" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "employée" or "employés"?
"employés" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,701 in our French list, against #7,821 for "employée". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

You've separated the homophone pair "employée" / "employés". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.

  • Full dictionary entry for "employée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "employés" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #416,339 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "employée" and "employés" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "employée vs employez". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #416,339 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