exercévsexercéeConfusable pair

Quick tell: exercé is a verb, exercée is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#10,320
“exercé” frequency rank
#16,127
“exercée” frequency rank
26447
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature exercé exercée
Definition Participe passé masculin singulier de exercer. Féminin singulier de exercé.

Same sound, different letters: exercé vs exercée

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 6 letters. exercé runs 6 letters (VCVCCV) against exercée's 7 (VCVCCVV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
exercé
7 ch
exercée

Ear matches; page differs - exercé and exercée

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: exercé and exercée carry the same recorded pronunciation, \ɛɡ.zɛʁ.se\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is averb, the other anadjective, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “exercé” sits inside “exercée”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 26447, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

exercé is recorded at frequency rank #10,320, classified as averb, pronounced \ɛɡ.zɛʁ.se\. exercée is at rank #16,127, tagged as anadj, pronounced \ɛɡ.zɛʁ.se\.

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 26447, this pair ranks #334,956 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of exercé vs exercée

Shared letters: cerxé. Private to "exercé": -. Private to "exercée": -.

"exercé" · 6 letters · shape VCVCCV  ·  "exercée" · 7 letters · shape VCVCCVV

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "exercé" and "exercée" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "exercé" is a verb and "exercée" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "exercé" vs "exercée" - which ranks higher?
"exercé" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #10,320 in our French list, against #16,127 for "exercée". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "exercé" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "exercée" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #334,956 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "exercé" and "exercée" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "émergée vs exercée". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #334,956 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