Which to use
“encourage” and “encouragées” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #7,313
- “encourage” frequency rank
- #43,919
- “encouragées” frequency rank
- 51232
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | encourage | encouragées |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Première personne du singulier du présent de l’indicatif de encourager. | Participe passé féminin pluriel de encourager. |
Where the eye mixes encourage and encouragées
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 9 letters in sequence. encourage runs 9 letters (VCCVVCVCV) against encouragées's 11 (VCCVVCVCVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Why the eye confuses encourage with encouragées
A purely visual mix-up. encourage (\ɑ̃.ku.ʁaʒ\) and encouragées (\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 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 51232, 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\. encouragées is at rank #43,919, 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 51232, this pair ranks #156,577 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of encourage vs encouragées
Shared letters: acegnoru. Private to "encourage": -. Private to "encouragées": sé.
"encourage" · 9 letters · shape VCCVVCVCV · "encouragées" · 11 letters · shape VCCVVCVCVVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- encourage ← ecnourage · enccourage · encoruage · encouarge · encouraeg · encouragge · encourgae · encourrage
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "encourage" and "encouragées" be used interchangeably?
Frequency check: "encourage" vs "encouragées" - which ranks higher?
What to do next
Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.
- Full dictionary entry for "encourage" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "encouragées" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #156,577 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "encourage" and "encouragées" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "encouragées 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 #156,577 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.