employéevsemployésWhat's the difference?

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.

Where the spellings diverge

Shared letters are muted; the letters that actually set employée and employés apart are highlighted. They share 7 letters in sequence, which is exactly why the eye skips the difference.

8 ch
employée
8 ch
employés

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

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

Frequency comparison

employée#7,821
employés#1,701

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list

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.

Remembering employée vs employés

The fastest way to pick the right one every time.

  • Check the role first: if you need a noun, it's “employée”; for an adjective, it's “employés”.
  • See each word in full, definition, IPA, etymology and its other confusables. Full “employée” entry
  • Browse more pairs most likely to be confused. Most confusable

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list