entouréevsentourerWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: entourée is a adjective, entourer is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#8,237
“entourée” frequency rank
#16,353
“entourer” frequency rank
24590
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature entourée entourer
Definition Féminin singulier de entouré. Mettre ou disposer autour ; être ou se tenir autour de.

Same sound, different letters: entourée vs entourer

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 7 letters. entourée (VCCVVCVV) and entourer (VCCVVCVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

8 ch
entourée
8 ch
entourer

Same sound, different spelling - entourée / entourer

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: entourée and entourer carry the same recorded pronunciation, \ɑ̃.tu.ʁe\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is anadjective, the other averb, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 24590, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

entourée is recorded at frequency rank #8,237, classified as anadj, pronounced \ɑ̃.tu.ʁe\. entourer is at rank #16,353, tagged as averb, 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 24590, this pair ranks #345,743 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of entourée vs entourer

Shared letters: enortu. Private to "entourée": é. Private to "entourer": -.

"entourée" · 8 letters · shape VCCVVCVV  ·  "entourer" · 8 letters · shape VCCVVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • entourerenntourer · enoturer · entoruer · entouerr · entourerr · entourre · entourrer · enttourer

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "entourée" and "entourer" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "entourée" is an adjective and "entourer" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "entourée" or "entourer" show up more?
"entourée" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #8,237 in our French list, against #16,353 for "entourer". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

You've separated the homophone pair "entourée" / "entourer". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.

  • Full dictionary entry for "entourée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "entourer" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #345,743 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "entourée" and "entourer" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "encourir vs entourer". 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 #345,743 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