exercévsexercéesConfusable pair

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

Which to use

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

#10,320
“exercé” frequency rank
#23,205
“exercées” frequency rank
33525
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature exercé exercées
Definition Participe passé masculin singulier de exercer. Féminin pluriel de exercé.

Same sound, different letters: exercé vs exercées

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 6 letters. exercé runs 6 letters (VCVCCV) against exercées's 8 (VCVCCVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
exercé
8 ch
exercées

Same sound, different spelling - exercé / exercées

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: exercé and exercées 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 2 extra letter(s) - “exercé” sits inside “exercées”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 33525, 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\. exercées is at rank #23,205, 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 33525, this pair ranks #290,059 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of exercé vs exercées

Shared letters: cerxé. Private to "exercé": -. Private to "exercées": s.

"exercé" · 6 letters · shape VCVCCV  ·  "exercées" · 8 letters · shape VCVCCVVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "exercé" for "exercées" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "exercé" is a verb and "exercées" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "exercé" or "exercées" show up more?
"exercé" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #10,320 in our French list, against #23,205 for "exercées". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

"exercé" and "exercées" share a sound, keep the gloss open, then jump to the headword or a nearby trap.

  • Full dictionary entry for "exercé" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "exercées" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #290,059 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "exercé" and "exercées" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "exercées vs exercera". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #290,059 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