excèdevsexcelWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#23,543
“excède” frequency rank
#15,376
“excel” frequency rank
38919
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature excède excel
Definition Première personne du singulier du présent de l’indicatif de excéder. Exceller, dépasser, maitriser.

Where the eye mixes excède and excel

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

6 ch
excède
5 ch
excel

Why the eye confuses excède with excel

A purely visual mix-up. excède (\ɛk.sɛd\) and excel (\ɪkˈsɛl\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 38919, 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\. excel is at rank #15,376, tagged as averb, pronounced \ɪkˈsɛl\.

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 38919, this pair ranks #251,845 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of excède vs excel

Shared letters: cex. Private to "excède": . Private to "excel": l.

"excède" · 6 letters · shape VCCVCV  ·  "excel" · 5 letters · shape VCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • excelecxel · exccel · excell · excle · execl · exxcel · xecel

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "excède" and "excel" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\ɛk.sɛd\ versus \ɪkˈsɛl\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "excède" vs "excel" - which ranks higher?
"excel" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #15,376 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.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "excède" and "excel" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "excède" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "excel" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #251,845 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "excède" and "excel" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "excède vs expédie". 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 #251,845 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