excelle vs excellent, What's the Difference?

Which to use

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

#23,860
“excelle” frequency rank: #1,865
“excellent” frequency rank: 25725
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	excelle	excellent
Definition	Première personne du singulier du présent de l’indicatif de exceller.	Qui excelle ; qui possède toutes les qualités requises, très bon.

Where the spellings diverge

Shared letters are muted; the letters that actually set excelle and excellent apart are highlighted. They share 7 letters in sequence, which is exactly why the eye skips the difference.

7 ch

excelle

9 ch

excellent

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: excelle is \ɛk.sɛl\ while excellent is \ɛk.sɛ.lɑ̃\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “excelle” sits inside “excellent”, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 25725, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

excelle is recorded at frequency rank #23,860, classified as averb, pronounced \ɛk.sɛl\. excellent is at rank #1,865, tagged as anadj, pronounced \ɛk.sɛ.lɑ̃\.

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 25725, this pair ranks #339,219 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of excelle vs excellent

Shared letters: celx. Private to "excelle": -. Private to "excellent": nt.

"excelle" · 7 letters · shape VCCVCCV · "excellent" · 9 letters · shape VCCVCCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

excelle ← ecxelle · exccelle · excele · excelel · exclele · execlle · exxcelle · xecelle
excellent ← ecxellent · exccellent · excelelnt · excelent · excellennt · excellentt · excelletn · excellnet

Frequency comparison

excelle#23,860

excellent#1,865

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "excelle" and "excellent" be used interchangeably?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "excelle" is a verb and "excellent" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

Which is more common, "excelle" or "excellent"?

"excellent" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,865 in our French list, against #23,860 for "excelle". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Remembering excelle vs excellent

The fastest way to pick the right one every time.

Check the role first: if you need a verb, it's “excelle”; for an adjective, it's “excellent”.
See each word in full, definition, IPA, etymology and its other confusables. Full “excelle” entry
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