enculévsexcuseWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

“enculé” and “excuse” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#8,387
“enculé” frequency rank
#2,422
“excuse” frequency rank
10809
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature enculé excuse
Definition Qui subit, ou a subi, une sodomie, un coït anal. Raison que l’on allègue pour expliquer ou atténuer une faute.

Where the eye mixes enculé and excuse

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

6 ch
enculé
6 ch
excuse

Visual trap between enculé and excuse

A purely visual mix-up. enculé (\ɑ̃.ky.le\) and excuse (\ɛks.kyz\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 10809, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

enculé is recorded at frequency rank #8,387, classified as anoun, pronounced \ɑ̃.ky.le\. excuse is at rank #2,422, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ɛks.kyz\.

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 10809, this pair ranks #411,582 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of enculé vs excuse

Shared letters: ceu. Private to "enculé": lné. Private to "excuse": sx.

"enculé" · 6 letters · shape VCCVCV  ·  "excuse" · 6 letters · shape VCCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • excuseecxuse · exccuse · excsue · excues · excusse · exucse · exxcuse · xecuse

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "enculé" and "excuse" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\ɑ̃.ky.le\ versus \ɛks.kyz\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "enculé" vs "excuse" - which ranks higher?
"excuse" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,422 in our French list, against #8,387 for "enculé". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "enculé" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "excuse" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #411,582 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "enculé" and "excuse" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "enculé vs enflé". 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 #411,582 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