Which to use
“excès” and “excuse” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #4,668
- “excès” frequency rank
- #2,422
- “excuse” frequency rank
- 7090
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | excès | excuse |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Ce qui est en trop. | Raison que l’on allègue pour expliquer ou atténuer une faute. |
Where the eye mixes excès and excuse
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. excès runs 5 letters (VCCVC) against excuse's 6 (VCCVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Visual trap between excès and excuse
A purely visual mix-up. excès (\ɛk.sɛ\) and excuse (\ɛks.kyz\) 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 7090, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
excès is recorded at frequency rank #4,668, classified as anoun, pronounced \ɛk.sɛ\. excuse is at rank #2,422, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ɛks.kyz\.
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 7090, this pair ranks #424,266 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of excès vs excuse
Shared letters: cesx. Private to "excès": è. Private to "excuse": u.
"excès" · 5 letters · shape VCCVC · "excuse" · 6 letters · shape VCCVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
- excuse ← ecxuse · exccuse · excsue · excues · excusse · exucse · exxcuse · xecuse
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "excès" and "excuse" be used interchangeably?
Frequency check: "excès" vs "excuse" - which ranks higher?
After this comparison
Eye-level mix-up between "excès" and "excuse" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "excès" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "excuse" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #424,266 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "excès" and "excuse" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "excuse vs excusent". 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 #424,266 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.