excluvsexcluentConfusable pair

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

Which to use

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

#6,393
“exclu” frequency rank
#28,164
“excluent” frequency rank
34557
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature exclu excluent
Definition À qui l’on interdit. Troisième personne du pluriel du présent de l’indicatif de exclure.

Same sound, different letters: exclu vs excluent

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 5 letters.

5 ch
exclu
8 ch
excluent

Ear matches; page differs - exclu and excluent

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: exclu and excluent carry the same recorded pronunciation, \ɛks.kly\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is anadjective, the other averb, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They differ by 3 extra letter(s) - “exclu” sits inside “excluent”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 34557, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

exclu is recorded at frequency rank #6,393, classified as anadj, pronounced \ɛks.kly\. excluent is at rank #28,164, tagged as averb, pronounced \ɛks.kly\.

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 34557, this pair ranks #282,956 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of exclu vs excluent

Shared letters: celux. Private to "exclu": -. Private to "excluent": nt.

"exclu" · 5 letters · shape VCCCV  ·  "excluent" · 8 letters · shape VCCCVVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • excluecxlu · excclu · excllu · excul · exlcu · exxclu · xeclu
  • excluentecxluent · exccluent · excleunt · exclluent · excluennt · excluentt · excluetn · exclunet

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "exclu" and "excluent" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "exclu" is an adjective and "excluent" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "exclu" or "excluent"?
"exclu" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #6,393 in our French list, against #28,164 for "excluent". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

You've separated the homophone pair "exclu" / "excluent". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.

  • Full dictionary entry for "exclu" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "excluent" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #282,956 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "exclu" and "excluent" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "excluent 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 #282,956 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