excède vs excédent, What's the Difference?

Which to use

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

#23,543
“excède” frequency rank: #14,035
“excédent” frequency rank: 37578
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	excède	excédent
Definition	Première personne du singulier du présent de l’indicatif de excéder.	Le nombre, la quantité qui excède.

Where the spellings diverge

Shared letters are muted; the letters that actually set excède and excédent apart are highlighted. They share 5 letters in sequence, which is exactly why the eye skips the difference.

6 ch

excède

8 ch

excédent

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: excède is \ɛk.sɛd\ while excédent is \ɛk.se.dɑ̃\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 37578, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

excède is recorded at frequency rank #23,543, classified as averb, pronounced \ɛk.sɛd\. excédent is at rank #14,035, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ɛk.se.dɑ̃\.

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 37578, this pair ranks #261,513 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of excède vs excédent

Shared letters: cdex. Private to "excède": è. Private to "excédent": nté.

"excède" · 6 letters · shape VCCVCV · "excédent" · 8 letters · shape VCCVCVCC

Frequency comparison

excède#23,543

excédent#14,035

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "excède" and "excédent" be used interchangeably?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "excède" is a verb and "excédent" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

Which is more common, "excède" or "excédent"?

"excédent" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #14,035 in our French list, against #23,543 for "excède". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Remembering excède vs excédent

The fastest way to pick the right one every time.

Check the role first: if you need a verb, it's “excède”; for a noun, it's “excédent”.
See each word in full, definition, IPA, etymology and its other confusables. Full “excède” entry
Browse more pairs most likely to be confused. Most confusable