exagéréevsexagèresTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#23,204
“exagérée” frequency rank
#42,866
“exagères” frequency rank
66070
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature exagérée exagères
Definition Féminin singulier de exagéré. Deuxième personne du singulier du présent de l’indicatif de exagérer.

Where the eye mixes exagérée and exagères

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence. exagérée (VCVCVCVV) and exagères (VCVCVCVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

8 ch
exagérée
8 ch
exagères

Why the eye confuses exagérée with exagères

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: exagérée is \ɛɡ.za.ʒe.ʁe\ while exagères is \ɛɡ.za.ʒɛʁ\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 66070, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

exagérée is recorded at frequency rank #23,204, classified as anadj, pronounced \ɛɡ.za.ʒe.ʁe\. exagères is at rank #42,866, tagged as averb, pronounced \ɛɡ.za.ʒɛʁ\.

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 66070, this pair ranks #69,471 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of exagérée vs exagères

Shared letters: aegrx. Private to "exagérée": é. Private to "exagères": sè.

"exagérée" · 8 letters · shape VCVCVCVV  ·  "exagères" · 8 letters · shape VCVCVCVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "exagérée" and "exagères" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "exagérée" is an adjective and "exagères" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "exagérée" or "exagères" show up more?
"exagérée" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #23,204 in our French list, against #42,866 for "exagères". 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 "exagérée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "exagères" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #69,471 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "exagérée" and "exagères" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "exagèrent vs exagères". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #69,471 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