Which to use
“exercé” is a verb and “exergue” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #10,320
- “exercé” frequency rank
- #20,138
- “exergue” frequency rank
- 30458
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | exercé | exergue |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Participe passé masculin singulier de exercer. | Petit espace réservé au bas d'une monnaie, d’une médaille (dans son champ), voire d'une cloche d'édifice religieux, pour y mettre une date, une inscription, une devise. |
Where the eye mixes exercé and exergue
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. exercé runs 6 letters (VCVCCV) against exergue's 7 (VCVCCVV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Look-alike desk: exercé vs exergue
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: exercé is \ɛɡ.zɛʁ.se\ while exergue is \ɛɡ.zɛʁɡ\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 30458, 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\. exergue is at rank #20,138, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ɛɡ.zɛʁɡ\.
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 30458, this pair ranks #310,184 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of exercé vs exergue
Shared letters: erx. Private to "exercé": cé. Private to "exergue": gu.
"exercé" · 6 letters · shape VCVCCV · "exergue" · 7 letters · shape VCVCCVV
Known mistypes of this pair
- exergue ← eexrgue · exegrue · exergeu · exerggue · exerrgue · exeruge · exregue · exxergue
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "exercé" and "exergue" be used interchangeably?
In ordinary French text, does "exercé" or "exergue" show up more?
What to do next
Eye-level mix-up between "exercé" and "exergue" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "exercé" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "exergue" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #310,184 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "exercé" and "exergue" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "émergée vs exergue". 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 #310,184 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.