envoyévsenvoyerWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: envoyé is a noun, envoyer is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“envoyé” is a noun and “envoyer” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#1,411
“envoyé” frequency rank
#1,162
“envoyer” frequency rank
2573
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature envoyé envoyer
Definition Personne qui est envoyée quelque part par quelqu’un. Faire partir quelqu’un ou faire porter quelque chose quelque part.

Same sound, different letters: envoyé vs envoyer

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 5 letters.

6 ch
envoyé
7 ch
envoyer

Ear matches; page differs - envoyé and envoyer

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: envoyé and envoyer carry the same recorded pronunciation, \ɑ̃.vwa.je\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is anoun, the other averb, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 2573, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

envoyé is recorded at frequency rank #1,411, classified as anoun, pronounced \ɑ̃.vwa.je\. envoyer is at rank #1,162, tagged as averb, pronounced \ɑ̃.vwa.je\.

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 2573, this pair ranks #435,878 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of envoyé vs envoyer

Shared letters: enovy. Private to "envoyé": é. Private to "envoyer": r.

"envoyé" · 6 letters · shape VCCVVV  ·  "envoyer" · 7 letters · shape VCCVVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • envoyerennvoyer · enovyer · envoeyr · envoyerr · envoyre · envoyyer · envvoyer · envyoer

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "envoyé" for "envoyer" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "envoyé" is a noun and "envoyer" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "envoyé" or "envoyer"?
"envoyer" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,162 in our French list, against #1,411 for "envoyé". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Sound matches; spelling doesn't. Use the exits below to lock the right form or check a cousin pair.

  • Full dictionary entry for "envoyé" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "envoyer" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #435,878 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "envoyé" and "envoyer" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "enjoué vs envoyé". 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 #435,878 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