Which to use
“excuser” is a verb and “excuses” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #5,979
- “excuser” frequency rank
- #3,914
- “excuses” frequency rank
- 9893
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | excuser | excuses |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Disculper dans une certaine mesure, présenter une personne ou une action comme moins coupable qu’elle ne semble. | Pluriel de excuse. |
Where the eye mixes excuser and excuses
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence. excuser and excuses follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (VCCVCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Visual trap between excuser and excuses
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: excuser is \ɛk.sky.ze\ while excuses is \ɛks.kyz\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by a single letter - r in “excuser” becomes s in “excuses”, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 9893, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
excuser is recorded at frequency rank #5,979, classified as averb, pronounced \ɛk.sky.ze\. excuses is at rank #3,914, 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 9893, this pair ranks #415,017 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of excuser vs excuses
Shared letters: cesux. Private to "excuser": r. Private to "excuses": -.
"excuser" · 7 letters · shape VCCVCVC · "excuses" · 7 letters · shape VCCVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "excuser" for "excuses" ever safe?
Frequency check: "excuser" vs "excuses" - which ranks higher?
After this comparison
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "excuser" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "excuses" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #415,017 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "excuser" and "excuses" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "exaucer vs excuser". 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 #415,017 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.