exercéevsexercerTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#16,127
“exercée” frequency rank
#4,232
“exercer” frequency rank
20359
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature exercée exercer
Definition Féminin singulier de exercé. Dresser, former, instruire à quelque chose par des actes fréquents.

Same sound, different letters: exercée vs exercer

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 6 letters. exercée (VCVCCVV) and exercer (VCVCCVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

7 ch
exercée
7 ch
exercer

Homophone desk: exercée vs exercer

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: exercée and exercer carry the same recorded pronunciation, \ɛɡ.zɛʁ.se\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is anadjective, the other averb, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 20359, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

exercée is recorded at frequency rank #16,127, classified as anadj, pronounced \ɛɡ.zɛʁ.se\. exercer is at rank #4,232, tagged as averb, 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 20359, this pair ranks #368,678 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of exercée vs exercer

Shared letters: cerx. Private to "exercée": é. Private to "exercer": -.

"exercée" · 7 letters · shape VCVCCVV  ·  "exercer" · 7 letters · shape VCVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • exercer ← eexrcer · execrer · exerccer · exercerr · exercre · exerecr · exerrcer · exrecer

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "exercée" and "exercer" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "exercée" is an adjective and "exercer" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "exercée" or "exercer"?
"exercer" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #4,232 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.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "exercée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "exercer" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #368,678 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "exercée" and "exercer" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "émergée vs exercée". 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 #368,678 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