encouruesvsentouréesConfusable pair

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

Which to use

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

#43,920
“encourues” frequency rank
#28,939
“entourées” frequency rank
72859
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature encourues entourées
Definition Participe passé féminin pluriel de encourir. Féminin pluriel de entouré.

Where the eye mixes encourues and entourées

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 7 letters in sequence. encourues and entourées follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (VCCVVCVVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

9 ch
encourues
9 ch
entourées

Why the eye confuses encourues with entourées

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: encourues is \ɑ̃.ku.ʁy\ while entourées is \ɑ̃.tu.ʁe\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 72859, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

encourues is recorded at frequency rank #43,920, classified as averb, pronounced \ɑ̃.ku.ʁy\. entourées is at rank #28,939, tagged as anadj, pronounced \ɑ̃.tu.ʁe\.

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 72859, this pair ranks #42,522 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of encourues vs entourées

Shared letters: enorsu. Private to "encourues": c. Private to "entourées": .

"encourues" · 9 letters · shape VCCVVCVVC  ·  "entourées" · 9 letters · shape VCCVVCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • encouruesecnourues · enccourues · encoruues · encoureus · encourrues · encouruess · encouruse · encouures

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "encourues" and "entourées" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "encourues" is a verb and "entourées" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "encourues" or "entourées" show up more?
"entourées" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #28,939 in our French list, against #43,920 for "encourues". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "encourues" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "entourées" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #42,522 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "encourues" and "entourées" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "encourue vs encourues". 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 #42,522 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