exercéesvsexercerWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#23,205
“exercées” frequency rank
#4,232
“exercer” frequency rank
27437
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

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

Same sound, different letters: exercées vs exercer

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 6 letters. exercées runs 8 letters (VCVCCVVC) against exercer's 7 (VCVCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

8 ch
exercées
7 ch
exercer

Homophone desk: exercées vs exercer

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: exercées 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 differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 27437, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

exercées is recorded at frequency rank #23,205, 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 27437, this pair ranks #328,951 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of exercées vs exercer

Shared letters: cerx. Private to "exercées": sé. Private to "exercer": -.

"exercées" · 8 letters · shape VCVCCVVC  ·  "exercer" · 7 letters · shape VCVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

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

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "exercées" for "exercer" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "exercées" is an adjective and "exercer" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "exercées" or "exercer" show up more?
"exercer" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #4,232 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

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "exercées" 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 #328,951 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "exercées" and "exercer" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "exercées vs exercera". 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 #328,951 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