Which to use
“encourage” and “encouragée” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #7,313
- “encourage” frequency rank
- #22,841
- “encouragée” frequency rank
- 30154
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | encourage | encouragée |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Première personne du singulier du présent de l’indicatif de encourager. | Participe passé féminin singulier de encourager. |
Where the eye mixes encourage and encouragée
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 9 letters in sequence. encourage runs 9 letters (VCCVVCVCV) against encouragée's 10 (VCCVVCVCVV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Look-alike desk: encourage vs encouragée
A purely visual mix-up. encourage (\ɑ̃.ku.ʁaʒ\) and encouragée (\ɑ̃.ku.ʁa.ʒe\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 30154, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
encourage is recorded at frequency rank #7,313, classified as averb, pronounced \ɑ̃.ku.ʁaʒ\. encouragée is at rank #22,841, tagged as averb, pronounced \ɑ̃.ku.ʁa.ʒe\.
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 30154, this pair ranks #312,159 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of encourage vs encouragée
Shared letters: acegnoru. Private to "encourage": -. Private to "encouragée": é.
"encourage" · 9 letters · shape VCCVVCVCV · "encouragée" · 10 letters · shape VCCVVCVCVV
Known mistypes of this pair
- encourage ← ecnourage · enccourage · encoruage · encouarge · encouraeg · encouragge · encourgae · encourrage
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "encourage" and "encouragée" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Frequency check: "encourage" vs "encouragée" - which ranks higher?
What to do next
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "encourage" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "encouragée" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #312,159 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "encourage" and "encouragée" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "encouragée vs encouragez". Nearby pair
- Recorded mistypes exist for at least one side of this pair, useful when a spell-checker or OCR lands on the wrong form. See mistypes
Confusion rank #312,159 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.